NEW YORK (AP) — A business tycoon long wanted by the Chinese government and known for developing ties to Trump administration figures, including Steve Bannon, was arrested Wednesday in New York on charges of overseeing a $1 billion fraud conspiracy.
Guo Wengui, 54, and his financier, Kin Ming Je, face charges in federal court in Manhattan charged with various crimes, including wire, securities and bank fraud. Guo was first charged in court papers under the name Ho Wan Kwok.
Federal prosecutors say the indictment stems from a complex scheme in which the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of online followers in the United States and around the world before misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars.
Je, 55, has not been arrested yet. Guo is expected to appear in court Wednesday. His attorney did not immediately comment.
Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, is one of China’s richest businessmen, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.1 billion in 2015.
Guo left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by President Xi Jinping that netted people close to Guo, including top intelligence officials. Chinese authorities have accused Guo of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other offenses.
Guo has long insisted that the charges against him in China are false, saying they were meant to punish him for corruption there and criticizing key figures in the Communist Party. For years, the case has been the subject of debate over whether China has abused the efforts of international law enforcement cooperation, including Interpol, to seek his arrest.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a release that Guo allegedly “lined his pockets with the stolen money, including buying himself, and his close relatives, a 50,000-square-foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses , and financed a luxury yacht for $37 million.
On the 150-foot-long (45-meter) yacht Guo, the former Bannon, the chief strategist of President Donald Trump, was once arrested on federal charges. Before leaving office, Trump made his case against Bannon dismissed with a pardon.
Authorities accused Guo of lying to his victims, promising them bigger returns if they invested or gave money to media companies, GTV Media Group Inc., called Himalaya Farm Alliance, G’CLUBS, and Himalaya Exchange.
Williams said that, between September 2022 and this month, the US government has seized approximately $634 million from 21 bank accounts, representing the majority of proceeds from Guo’s alleged fraud.
He said law enforcement on Wednesday also seized assets purchased with the proceeds of the alleged fraud, including a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also brought civil charges against Guo on Wednesday, saying in federal court that Guo led others to commit multiple frauds beginning in April 2020.
The SEC said Guo targeted retail investors through online and social media posts and videos, deceiving them with lies such as claims that a crypto asset security called “H-Coin” was backed by gold reserves.
The SEC said Guo and Je raised about $452 million through GTV’s unregistered public stock offering from April 2020 to June 2020, claiming to “build the most popular and secure social media and transaction platform independent of Chinese government censorship and monitoring, which allows you to allow the people of China and the world to realize their freedom and trade.