TYCOON BUSTED, APT. BURNS
Nab Bannon pal at posh pad in $1B fraud – fire follows
Exiled Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui — on whose yacht exWhite House adviser Steve Bannon was arrested in 2020 — was busted by the feds in Manhattan on Wednesday in an alleged billion-dollar fraud scheme that hoodwinked his online followers.
In a curious plot twist, Guo’s $32.5 million penthouse in The Sherry-Netherland hotel in Midtown burst into flames hours after FBI agents arrested him there in a 6 a.m. raid, fire officials and federal authorities said.
Federal prosecutors were investigating the cause of the fire, said Nick Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
Guo, 52, whose real name is Ho Wan Kwok, has at least five aliases: Miles Guo, Miles Kwok, Guo Wengui, Brother Seven and The Principal.
He’s accused of carrying out a “sprawling” fraud conspiracy that saw him solicit more than $1 billion in investments for bogus ventures from his online followers to splurge on himself and his relatives.
Authorities say he used the stolen funds to buy a $37 million megayacht, a 50,000-squarefoot New Jersey mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari for his kid, two mattresses costing $36,000 apiece, and many other luxury purchases.
At his Manhattan Federal Court arraignment, authorities detained the Chinese magnate after he pleaded not guilty to 12 counts related to wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. An attorney held off on making a bail application until the lawyers who will represent Guo in the case arrive in New York.
Guo said little during the proceeding but was seen smiling widely and bowing to people seated in the courtroom gallery, whose relation to him was unclear. A woman who identified herself on social media as Guo’s daughter conveyed a message from him that said in part, “Please rest assured I am fine and very safe.”
Sources at the scene of the two-alarm fire told the Daily News that FBI agents were in the 18th-floor apartment where Guo lives with his wife and two kids when it broke out.
FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Chuck Downey said 30 units and about 150 personnel responded to the blaze shortly after noon and controlled the fire by 1:45 p.m. The bomb squad was also on the scene.
“Fire marshals are on the scene investigating the cause and origin of this fire, and we’ll probably be at this operation for quite some time. It’ll be an extended operation,” Downey said.
A hotel worker who asked to remain anonymous described Guo as friendly and said he’s known for generously tipping building staff.
“Word is that he set it. I don’t know,” speculated the worker. “Two things correlate, two incidents; he got arrested, before that, maybe he found out someone was coming and set up some sabotage? Who knows.
“The FBI is upstairs. Everybody’s up there. I should have called out sick.”
The feds have seized $634 million from 21 different bank accounts connected to Guo’s alleged fraud since September, taking a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Road into custody along with him Wednesday.
The indictment charges his U.K.-based financier, Kin Ming Je, who goes by William Je, with being the scheme’s financial architect and chief money launderer. Je, 56, is on the lam, authorities said.
Guo’s chief of staff, Yvette Wang, also faces charges. Her bail was set at $5 million.
“[Guo] lied to his victims and promised them outsized returns” if they invested in his funds, Williams said in a statement.
In 2018, Guo gained a huge online following after founding two nonprofits. One is the Rule of Law Foundation — Bannon once sat on its board of directors — and the other the Rule of Law Society. The Rule of Law Foundation says its aim is “exposing the inherent evil of the authoritarian Chinese
Communist Party government.”
At the same time Guo’s online following grew, the feds say, he began sharing bogus moneymaking opportunities online that he said would make his followers rich.
The feds say he and his indicted associates funneled the cash through myriad complex means. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil charges against Guo Wednesday, which include additional allegations related to a cryptoasset called H-Coin.
The billionaire businessman fled China in 2015, reportedly because he feared arrest on corruption charges.
His now-seized yacht Lady May made headlines in 2020 when right-wing strategist and Trump adviser Bannon was arrested onboard off the coast of Connecticut.
Former President Donald Trump pardoned Bannon of the federal charges connected to the alleged “We Build the Wall” scam in an eleventh-hour clemency blitz before leaving office. Bannon still faces New York State charges in the case, which involves a nonprofit that claimed to raise money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In December, Mother Jones magazine reported that Guo conspired with Bannon and former Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to disseminate content recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop.