Philippine court freezes 25 crypto wallets and 86 bank accounts in flood control probe

The Philippine Court of Appeals has frozen 116 financial assets linked to a high-profile lawmaker. Twenty-five of them are crypto wallets.

The order is part of a plunder investigation into alleged kickbacks from government flood-control projects.

What got frozen, and why

The freeze order is dated September 21, 2026. The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), which facilitated the order, announced it on October 1, 2026.

The 116 assets break down like this:

86 bank accounts, 4 investment accounts, 1 insurance policy and 25 virtual asset wallets.

The assets are linked to the lawmaker and to various associated parties.

The legal basis is Republic Act No. 7080, the Philippines’ Plunder Law. Investigators say they have established probable cause connecting the frozen assets to a widespread kickback scheme around flood-control projects.

The AMLC’s findings describe a deliberate effort to hide where the money came from. Funds were allegedly routed through numerous intermediaries, financial institutions and digital platforms.

The council also flagged large sums that could not be justified by operational revenues.

The identities of the people tied to these accounts have not been disclosed. Legal confidentiality protections cover them while the case moves forward.

A scandal that started in 2025

This freeze is not the first move in the case. The flood-control scandal first came to light in 2025 and has since involved multiple lawmakers.

Earlier rounds of asset freezes have already covered sums totaling tens of billions of pesos. The investigation has also surfaced what the research describes as pervasive misconduct across various government entities.

What this means for crypto and for the case

The AMLC specifically identified digital financial channels as key to moving funds in ways that obscured their origins. That puts virtual asset platforms in the same frame as the banks and intermediaries allegedly used in the scheme.

For the case itself, several threads are worth watching.

The first is disclosure. The lawmaker and associated parties are currently shielded by confidentiality, and any eventual naming would likely sharpen public and political attention on the probe.

The second is scope. Previous freezes have already reached tens of billions of pesos, and this order adds 116 more assets.

The third is how the virtual asset portion holds up. The 25 wallets are a small slice of the 116 assets by count, but they offer a test of how effectively authorities can trace and preserve funds held in digital form.

Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.