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Tony Yang was arrested carrying wads of cash as he lands in Manila from Cagayan de Oro
MANILA, Philippines – Philippine immigration authorities arrested late Thursday night, September 19, the businessman Tony Yang, who is the elder brother of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s economic adviser Michael Yang.
“The Bureau of Immigration and Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission apprehend Yang Jian Xin at the NAIA T3. Yang is the elder brother of Hong Ming Yang or Michael Yang. He was caught on the basis of a mission order as an undesirable alien,” PAOCC Spokesperson Winston Casio said.
Casio said Yang will be detained at a PAOCC facility. He was arrested carrying wads of cash as he landed in Manila from Cagayan de Oro (CDO).
The arrest happened while the House quad committee hearing was still ongoing. Casio had to step out of the House of Representatives in Batasan early Thursday night to be at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for the apprehension.
PAOCC had been investigating Tony Yang for a while now, Rappler has learned, and on Thursday briefed the quad committee about his Cagayan de Oro City (CDO) operations.
Earlier Thursday, Sta Rosa, Laguna Representative Dan Fernandez said that Yang is the same person as Jianxin Yang and also the same person as Antonio Lim who owns the the Golden Citi Development Inc, which in turn owns the Yangze Building where a Philippine offshore gaming operator had operated before. The CDO city police confirmed that the Oroone Inc POGO had in fact been present in that building but ceased operations as early as July 2023.
After Fernandez was informed that the apprehension in NAIA had been successful, the lawmaker continued his presentation on Tony Yang and linked the businessman as far as to drugs.
Tony Yang also owns the Philippine Sanjia Steel Corporation, according to incorporation records, and is located within Phividec, the government agency that develops sites for industrial areas, also in CDO.
Fernandez flagged this because Sanjia put up a port in the Phividec compound, “where ships carrying cargoes dock.”
“All the cargoes of different goods go through that port,” Fernandez said.
“I’m not going to show the different financial transactions wherein the different exchanges of money that involves those who are in the drug trade, we will withhold the showing of the matrix. I think PAOCC may have the proper knowledge of expressing the totality of this matrix,” he added. “Maybe the drugs of the country passed through that port hiding in legitimate business.”
Tony Yang and other Sanjia incorporators have been invited to the House quad committee.
“It means there is a real connection between POGO and drugs, and that’s what our people need to know, that there’s a real connection here between POGO, and drugs and Chinese syndicates,” said Manila 6th District Representative Benny Abante.
Sanjia broke ground in Phividec in 2019 in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental.
Fernandez said that in 2021, Phividec authorities “caught Tony Yang smuggling rice through the port in Sanjia, these are documented.”
“It means they are also the ones involved in rice cartel,” Abante said in Filipino.
The middle sibling of the Yang brothers is Hongjiang Yang, who has a joint bank account with Zhengcan Yu, one of the incorporators of Hongsheng Gaming Corporation — the POGO in Bamban, Tarlac inside the compound owned by Baofu, which Alice Guo incorporated. This joint bank account has been frozen by the Court of Appeals in connection with the Guo investigation.
Guo on Thursday denied knowing any of the Yang brothers, including Hongjiang Yang.
Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr briefly presented a matrix linking Michael Yang through several degrees of Chinese associates to Empire 999 Realty “where the P3.6 billion shabu in Mexico, Pampanga was found.” – Rappler.com
