AMLC freeze order covers 25 crypto wallets and 91 other assets
The Sept. 21 order covers 86 bank accounts, four investment accounts, one insurance policy and 25 virtual asset wallets. Together, the categories account for 116 financial accounts and other assets placed under restraint while authorities continue their investigation.
A freeze order blocks covered property from being withdrawn, transferred or disposed of during the court-approved period. Philippine Supreme Court decisions describe the measure as interim relief intended to preserve property suspected of being connected to unlawful activity while investigators build a case. A freeze order does not by itself establish criminal guilt.
The current disclosure gives no value for the 25 virtual asset wallets. It does not name the cryptocurrencies held in them, publish blockchain addresses or identify the virtual asset service provider involved. The AMLC likewise did not state how much of the suspected money moved through crypto compared with banks, investment accounts or the money service business cited in its investigation.
Investigators said the people involved had “no apparent operating revenues” sufficient to support the scale of their investments. The statement did not provide the value of the investments or identify the businesses whose operating income was reviewed.
AMLC says funds moved through crypto and banking layers
According to the council, money linked to the investments moved through individual intermediaries, corporations, bank accounts, a money service business and a virtual asset platform. Multiple recipients and financial channels “complicated the tracing of the funds,” the AMLC said.
The agency said it traced the transactions to funds allegedly associated with corruption and plunder cases involving the lawmaker. Its statement described virtual asset service providers and multiple wallets as part of the transaction path, but it did not identify any exchange or accuse a named crypto company of wrongdoing.
Virtual asset firms operating in the Philippines face separate regulatory requirements from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Crypto.news reported in June that the BSP introduced deeper screening and continuing monitoring requirements for assets offered by virtual asset service providers.
A separate crypto.news report said Binance and BlockShoals lacked the BSP license required for virtual asset services at the time, even as BlockShoals pursued testing through the SEC’s regulatory sandbox. Neither company was named by the AMLC in the Sept. 21 freeze order, and the council’s public statement did not identify the platform used in the transactions under investigation.
Earlier flood-control probes had tracked crypto transfers
Crypto had surfaced in the government’s flood-control asset-recovery work months before the latest order. In December 2025, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center official Renato Paraiso said investigators were examining reports that money tied to flood-control corruption had been converted into $USDT and moved through intermediaries.
Paraiso said investigators had seen large requests for $USDT and were looking into crypto movements potentially worth $50 million to $100 million. He said one-time transactions of ₱50 million or more appeared in the laundering patterns investigators were monitoring. The figures were estimates discussed in the earlier inquiry and were not presented by the AMLC as the value of the 25 wallets covered by the September 2026 order.
At the time, Paraiso said the AMLC had recovered some $USDT after an exchange voluntarily froze a suspicious transaction and cooperated with authorities. He said offshore exchanges created jurisdictional difficulties for Philippine agencies, leaving authorities dependent in some cases on cooperation from platforms outside the country.
The latest Court of Appeals order gives authorities a domestic legal mechanism to restrain the specific accounts and wallets covered by the case. The AMLC said it would continue working with partner agencies and financial service providers to identify, trace, restrain and recover suspected illicit assets.
Court can extend the freeze while the case proceeds
Philippine anti-money laundering law sets an initial 20-day period for Court of Appeals freeze orders. The Supreme Court has ruled that the court must hold a summary hearing within that period, with notice to the parties, to decide whether the order should be modified, lifted or extended.
If the court extends a freeze order, the total period cannot exceed six months under Section 10 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. A person whose account has been frozen can seek to have the order lifted, while only the Supreme Court may issue an injunction against a freeze order.
The Supreme Court has further ruled that a freeze order must be limited to the amount or value the court finds probably connected to a predicate offense. Funds in the same account above the value linked to suspected proceeds are not automatically covered solely because they sit in the same account.
Authorities can pursue a separate asset preservation order through the Regional Trial Court if an anti-money laundering or civil forfeiture case is filed. The Court of Appeals can then remand the records to the trial court, while an asset preservation order can continue restraining property involved in the case.
