Guo Wengui sentenced to 30 years in jail
Michael Sisak, Jennifer Peltz And Larry Neumeister
A self-exiled billionaire Chinese businessman once believed to be among China’s richest men has been sentenced to 30 years in a US prison for a massive financial fraud that a federal judge said cost more than 1,000 people around the world hundreds of millions of dollars.
Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Guo, fled China a decade ago and reinvented himself as a US-based Communist Party critic. He was sentenced by Judge Analisa Torres, who told a courtroom packed with his supporters in a Manhattan courtroom that he “attacked those who wanted to bring Democracy to China” by taking his money so he could live lavishly.
Prosecutors say Guo persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to invest a total of more than US$1 billion ($1.5 billion) in entities he controlled, including media company GTV Media Group and the so-called Himalayan Farm Alliance and Himalayan Stock Exchange.
Before his sentencing, Guo protested his treatment in prison, saying he had been hospitalized the morning of his sentencing. He disputed the prosecutor’s portrayal of him as a poser who faked illness and said he vomited repeatedly while being sent back to jail before his arraignment.
Guo described his arrival at the courthouse through a translator: “When I came here, I said, ‘I have a stomach ache, I need to go to the toilet, I don’t feel well.'” Guo then wiped his mouth repeatedly with a tissue.
He only briefly touched on the criminal case and defended his intentions, referring to the Chinese Communist Party: “The reason I came to the United States was to destroy the CCP.”
In sentencing him, the judge read from letters he had received from victims describing how they had lost their life savings, felt severely anxious and embarrassed, and had family members turn against them because of poor investment choices.
Torres said Guo “took no responsibility for his actions and instead incredulously insisted that his actions caused no casualties and did not harm anyone.” He said he “urged his supporters to harass and intimidate anyone who dared to speak out against him.”
The judge ordered Guo to forfeit US$889 million in damages.
Victim Wei Chen, who testified at the hearing, told Torres that Guo’s fraud “destroyed my life and the life of his family.”
Supporters applauded and shouted as Guo left the courtroom after the sentencing.
Before he was arrested three years ago and held without bail, Guo became so close to conservative political strategist Steve Bannon that they announced a joint attempt to overthrow the Chinese government in 2020. Bannon lived in a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park and attended President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida golf club.
Prosecutors had asked for him to serve at least 30 years in prison, saying his “staggering” scam from 2018 to 2023 “destroyed hundreds of lives” and left “a wreckage of victims and families devastated financially, emotionally and psychologically.”
Prosecutors said in court documents that his ill-gotten riches fueled “a lifestyle of extraordinary excess and indulgence, a gilded existence filled with mansions, yachts, race cars, designer clothes and luxury furniture.”
“The reason I came to the United States was to destroy the CCP.”
Guo Wengui
Guo was found guilty of nine of 12 charges during a seven-week trial that prosecutors said showed Guo defrauded thousands of investors with sham deals that enabled his lavish lifestyle.
In a court filing, Guo’s lawyers wrote that he was the victim of the Chinese Communist Party’s “massive, widespread and life-threatening” pursuit of him. They alleged that the party recruited elites in US business, entertainment and politics to conspire against it.
They said in pre-sentence court documents that a lengthy prison sentence would only validate China’s smear campaign and “further encourage efforts to remove Chinese dissidents from public life,” while defendants in similar cases would be sentenced to two to four years in prison.
Lawyers noted that a court probation officer wrote to the sentencing judge that Guo, also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, had scars and deformities from physical torture he was subjected to in China and surgeries he underwent from 1993 to 2022 to repair the injuries.
Defense lawyers said Guo’s wealth soared as his family became the largest shareholder of China’s largest publicly traded securities company, but by exposing their corruption he became a target of Chinese government officials. Guo eventually moved to Hong Kong, London and then New York in 2017, the lawyers wrote.
Chinese authorities accused him of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other crimes, but Guo said those allegations were false.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that they noted the sentence, that Guo was wanted by the Chinese government and that there was a “Red Notice” about him by Interpol. A notification is a request to police forces around the world to arrest a suspect for extradition.
The government alleged in pre-sentence court documents that Guo “lacks complete remorse” for his crimes after taking advantage of lax U.S. asylum laws to thrive in America.
AP, Bloomberg
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