As suspicious payments from Philippine government contracts flowed into a medical supplies company during the COVID-19 pandemic, two men at the center of the ensuing corruption scandal were dealing in Dubai real estate.
Leaked property data from Dubai names Michael Yang and Lin Weixiong in transactions totalling more than $20 million.
Yang served as an economic advisor to former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and was allegedly involved in securing $130 million in sales on behalf of a company called Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.
Lin Weixiong was financial manager for Pharmally, which is accused of selling overpriced medical supplies to government departments. He was “deeply involved in the irregular scheme,” according to an indictment against him.
Neither man responded to requests for comment from OCCRP and its media partner in the Philippines, Rappler.
As the pandemic was raging in May 2021, Lin purchased a plot of land in a gated community in Dubai called Emirates Hills for $16.3 million, according to the leaked real estate transaction data obtained by OCCRP.
The following month, he bought a villa in another luxury development for $4.7 million, according to the leaked data. Official Dubai property records also include the date and price of both transactions, but omit the names of those involved.
In September 2021, shortly after the Dubai property purchases, the Philippine Senate began hearings to investigate the government contracts obtained by Lin’s company, Pharmally.
As hearings continued, Lin and Yang sold the Emirates Hills property, making a profit of about $6.8 million. While Yang isn’t named in the initial purchase, the October 2022 document recording the sale lists him as the co-owner, along with Lin.
Lin was called to testify before the Senate multiple times about the Pharmally scandal, but did not show up. He was indicted in May this year for graft, although charges have not been proven in court.
Yang has not been charged in relation to Pharmally contracts, but he did testify at Senate hearings about the scandal.
Separately, Yang has been called by the Philippine House of Representatives to testify about his alleged links to drug traffickers, but has failed to appear.
Yang has also been named in a case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands. Prosecutors are investigating his former boss, Duterte, in relation to a so-called "war on drugs" that rights groups say killed as many as 30,000 people during his tenure as president from 2016 to 2022.
Duterte allegedly modelled his national drug war on deadly tactics he used in the early 2000s when he was mayor of Davao, a city in the southern island of Mindanao. He is accused of organizing vigilante groups there who killed for money.
A member of one of the groups, the “Davao Death Squad,” testified to the ICC that Yang was involved in a network of methamphetamine labs in Mindanao in the early 2000s, OCCRP has reported.
The testimony accused Duterte and his son of working with Yang in the illegal drug trade. A spokesman for Duterte at the time OCCRP reported on the testimony in 2021 dismissed the allegations as “hearsay.” Yang, via his lawyer, also refuted the allegations at the time.
After serving as mayor of Davao, Duterte became president of the Philippines and appointed Yang as an economic advisor in 2018. It’s unclear how long Yang stayed in the position officially, but the Senate committee alleges he was able to guarantee that government COVID contracts flowed to Pharmally.
Travel records obtained by Rappler from the Department of Justice show that Yang left the Philippines in May this year. He flew to Dubai.