Image source, Getty Images
- author, Joao da Silva
- role, Business reporter
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Guo Wengui, a self-exiled Chinese businessman, has been convicted in a US court of defrauding his online followers out of $1 billion.
He was convicted on nine of 12 criminal counts, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering.
Guo’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 19 and he could face decades in prison. He has been in prison since his arrest in March 2023.
He is a critic of the Chinese Communist Party and an associate of Stephen Bannon, who served as White House chief strategist under former President Donald Trump.
Guo used several aliases, including Miles Guo, Miles Kwok and “Brother Seven.” When he was indicted in 2023, he was known as Ho Wan Kwok.
Prosecutors say Guo raised more than $1 billion from online followers who participated in investment and cryptocurrency schemes between 2018 and 2023.
The funds Mr. Guo raised were used to fund his lavish lifestyle, including a 50,000-square-foot mansion, a $1 million Lamborghini and a $37 million yacht, the people said.
“Thousands of Mr. Guo’s online followers were harmed so that he could live a lavish lifestyle,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said after the verdict.
Guo’s political activism and ties to prominent right-wing U.S. politicians and activists have earned him hundreds of thousands of online followers, most of whom are Chinese living in Western countries.
Guo’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to convince the jury that their client was not acting for financial gain.
Instead, they portrayed him as an ardent opponent of China’s political system and reported his flamboyant lifestyle as a criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.
After arriving in the United States in 2017, Guo’s public opposition to China’s rulers led to several business ventures with Bannon.
They frequently appear together in online videos and in 2020 launched a campaign called the “New China Federal State” with the goal of toppling the Chinese Communist Party.
Later that year, Bannon was arrested on an unrelated fraud case while aboard Guo’s yacht in Connecticut and was subsequently pardoned by then-President Donald Trump.
Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
