Pharmally boss Lin Weixiong entangled in Asia Pacific crime net

First of two components
Executed in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Challenge
Half 2: Taiwan drug convict poses as Filipino, hyperlinks to Pharmally boss Lin Weixiong

Earlier than the Philippines’ twentieth Congress went on recess to offer option to the midterm elections in Might 2025, lawmakers really useful a deeper investigation into Chinese language nationwide Lin Weixiong, a largely mysterious determine, however whose ties allegedly run deep in a foreign-run community concerned in trafficking unlawful medicine and working rip-off farms within the Philippines.

Lin Weixiong is the monetary officer of Pharmally Pharmaceutical, the undercapitalized firm that gained a lot of the pandemic contracts from the Duterte authorities. 

Lin, Rappler has confirmed, is now thought of at-large and evading a warrant from the anti-graft courtroom Sandiganbayan for prices relating to a few allegedly anomalous contracts for coronavirus take a look at kits price a complete of P4.1 billion. It is only one of Pharmally-related prices that contain Lin, as new Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla withdrew the remainder of the circumstances for the aim of reinvestigating, and refiling stronger ones. 

Lin is a detailed affiliate of Michael Yang, Duterte’s one-time financial adviser, and collectively they belong to what the Home quad committee known as an “interlocking” enterprise community that not solely has connections to the Alice Guo rip-off farm in Bamban, Tarlac, but additionally the warehouse that hid smuggled shabu in Mexico, Pampanga.

Guo, the dismissed mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, has since been discovered responsible of human trafficking over the rip-off farm, and was sentenced to life imprisonment final November 2025.

It seems that Lin’s community goes past the Philippines, and he additionally has enterprise ties to the Hsu brothers of Taiwan, whose conglomerate Lixin group is linked to the Asia-Pacific drug syndicate Sam Gor, an investigation by a bunch of journalists, together with Rappler, has proven.

Our investigation has revealed that Lin is enterprise companions with Lixin boss Hsu Ming-chao at a property enterprise in Batumi, Georgia. Hsu Ming-chao’s brother Hsu Ming-chin is a drug convict who used the Philippines to evade the regulation. Lixin attorneys distance the corporate and Ming-chao from his brother, the convict Ming-chin.

Lin’s Philippine attorneys declare that he has already divested from the Georgian firm, though latest company filings nonetheless confirmed him as a shareholder.

Lin’s connection to the Hsu brothers is a part of a long-term investigation led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Challenge (OCCRP) and its reporting companions The Reporter in Taiwan, Voice of Democracy in Cambodia, the Governance Monitoring Middle in Georgia, and Rappler within the Philippines.

Who’s Lin Weixiong?

Lin’s enterprise with the Hsu brothers has been on the radar of the Philippines’ Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Fee (PAOCC), the group that led the crackdown and eventual ban on Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs). 

In accordance with a PAOCC briefer that Rappler noticed, the Hsu brothers “elevate concern” due to their “complicated and far-reaching group” and Lin’s connection to them simply reveals a “strengthening worldwide enterprise community.”

This latest discovery underscores the necessity to perceive simply precisely who Lin is, and the way far his networks attain, as a result of in accordance with embattled former police Eduardo Acierto, Duterte put a P10-million bounty on his head for exposing Lin and Yang. 

Lin Weixiong arrived within the Philippines in 2001, in accordance with his journey information obtained by Rappler. He met a Filipino girl named Rose Nono at a lodge round 2007, and later married her, in accordance with Rose’s recollection to the Home of Representatives.

Lin obtained his standing as short-term resident within the Philippines in 2008, which was upgraded to everlasting resident in 2009, in accordance with immigration orders we obtained. 

He gained prominence in the course of the pandemic in 2021 as a result of Acierto resurfaced to say that he had beforehand warned Duterte of Lin and Yang’s alleged drug ties. Acierto is in hiding after he was charged and ordered arrested over a smuggled shabu case in 2019. Acierto mentioned that is the retaliatory consequence of exposing  Lin and Yang.

In accordance with Acierto’s file that Rappler obtained, Lin had allegedly been concerned in unlawful medicine since manner again 2003. Acierto talked about these in an intelligence report he claimed he relayed to Duterte to sound the alarm on Lin and Yang. Duterte didn’t consider him, and Acierto mentioned he was persecuted for it. Acierto had been on the run since then, citing threats to his life. 

In accordance with the Acierto report, Lin is identical Allan Lim who was charged earlier than a Cavite courtroom in 2003 for manufacturing medicine. That case was dismissed. In 2004, a clandestine shabu laboratory was raided in Dumoy, Davao Metropolis. The lab was allegedly owned by Yang.

That Yang is the “enterprise affiliate of Lin” is what Acierto had been attempting to warn Duterte, however to no avail. That Dumoy raid is a part of the affidavit of a self-confessed hitman who advised the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC) that Duterte ordered the killing of at the least 11 Chinese language nationals arrested in that raid.  

Rose Nono Lin and Yang have denied the veracity of the Acierto report, and so has Wilkins Villanueva, Duterte’s Philippine Drug Enforcement Company (PDEA) chief. Each Rose Lin and Villanueva claimed that the Allan Lim charged in Cavite in 2003 shouldn’t be Lin Weixiong.

However in the course of the 2024 quad committee hearings, former PDEA chief Moro Lazo mentioned in any other case, citing a trusted informant that Allan Lim and Lin Weixiong are one and the identical. 

Pharmally

In March 2017, Lin, Yang and different businessmen met Duterte in Davao Metropolis. Yang, who had lengthy been primarily based in Davao Metropolis, was contracted as Duterte’s financial adviser in January 2018.

In September 2019, the opposite businessmen who met Duterte in that very same assembly included the corporate Pharmally Pharmaceutical Company. The agency, though undercapitalized, cornered the largest pandemic contracts price P7.9 billion from the Duterte authorities. Investigations later revealed overpriced and substandard PPEs or private protecting gear like face masks and take a look at kits.

In accordance with the prices introduced towards him, Lin was Pharmally’s monetary supervisor who had the facility to deposit and withdraw from firm accounts. Yang, the Pharmally house owners mentioned, was a guarantor. Because the Pharmally scandal blew up in 2021, Lin had gone to Hong Kong and Dubai, in accordance with journey information we obtained, and didn’t return even to face congressional hearings. 

“There’s a authorized precept that flight is a sign of guilt, since our invitation was not honored. There was no legitimate excuse to not attend, in reality it’s not even a courtroom listening to, but it surely was only a listening to in support of laws for personalities whom we really feel have direct involvement in unlawful POGOs, medicine and human rights violations,” former Surigao del Norte 2nd District consultant Ace Barbers, who was a chairperson of the Home quad committee, advised Rappler.

Rose Lin’s TikTok and Instagram pages point out that she and her husband had additionally traveled to Georgia from 2022 to 2023. The OCCRP-led investigation discovered that Lin had gone to Georgia to place up the corporate with Hsu Ming-chao, chief of the Lixin group.

The Hsu brothers

Hsu Ming-chao’s brother is Hsu Ming-chin or Thomas Xu who has been evading a drug conviction in Taiwan since 2014 when he misplaced his closing enchantment. The attorneys for Ming-chao, who has no prison file, distanced him from Thomas/Hsu Ming-chin saying that Thomas has no present involvement within the Lixin group. Hsu Ming-chao, the attorneys mentioned, is at present the “sole shareholder” of Lixin firms in Cambodia.

“Hsu Ming-chao and Hsu Ming-chin are brothers by blood, however Mr Thomas Xu/Hsu Ming-chin shouldn’t be concerned within the enterprise of any entity inside the Lixin Group,” the attorneys mentioned in a letter to OCCRP.

Nevertheless from 2018 to 2022, Lixin promotional supplies referred to Hsu Ming-chin and/or Thomas Xu as Lixin chairman. He was additionally the preliminary investor in Lixin’s “landmark” property growth in Georgia, a pair of skyscrapers with rooftop terraces and swimming swimming pools known as The Halcyon, OCCRP uncovered.  

The Lixin connection is noteworthy as a result of it additionally ties to funding scams that operated out of Cambodia, the nation the place the brothers discovered their enterprise success.

In 2024, a Chinese language courtroom discovered that Lixin trafficked 12 Chinese language employees to Sihanoukville the place they ran a name middle rip-off. Lixin, being a Cambodian firm, was not a part of the costs as China has no jurisdiction over them.

The China judgment gave particulars of how Chinese language staff traveled to Cambodia to function funding scams.  It’s an identical template within the Philippines, the place unlawful POGOs trafficked international employees too, to run their very own variations of rip-off hubs.

Lixin attorneys mentioned these circumstances have “no connection in any respect” to Hsu Ming-chao’s Lixin group.

There’s additionally a connection to WM on line casino that’s of curiosity to Philippine investigators. This connection first surfaced when web servers utilized by a WM playing platform have been raided in Taiwan.

Lixin authorized counsel confirmed Hsu Ming-chao was an investor in WM On line casino however confirmed OCCRP a doc to show that the businessman opted out of a WM on line casino enterprise in Cambodia in December 2019. Paperwork considered by OCCRP, nonetheless, discovered that in March 2021, Hsu Ming-chao’s Lixin Development Co. Ltd was granted the logos of WM On line casino, WM Lodge and Lixin On line casino, sustaining its financial curiosity within the model. The logos have been later challenged by one other lodge and resort firm as a result of similarity to its personal international lodge chain. 

A part of the rationale why Lixin and the Hsu brothers are monitored by the Philippines is due to the WM on line casino connection. Our intelligence sources say that they’re wanting into the attainable connection of WM On line casino and junket operator 9 Dynasty.

The Anti-Cash Laundering Council (AMLC) is investigating the 9 Dynasty group after police tagged it because the underground route that funeled the ransom cash requested by the  kidnappers of Chinese language businessman Anson Que, who was additionally later killed together with his driver. Their our bodies have been present in April 2025. (To be concluded) – Rappler.com

NEXT: Half 2 | Taiwan drug convict poses as Filipino, hyperlinks to Pharmally boss Lin Weixiong