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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Breaking (It All) Open Thread: Bannon’s Funder Guo Wengui (Miles Kwok) Arrested

Breaking (It All) Open Thread: Bannon’s Funder Guo Wengui (Miles Kwok) Arrested

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The headline, of course, way undersells Guo Wengui’s versatility — the man contains multitudes. Per NBC, FBI investigates fire where Chinese billionaire, a Steve Bannon ally, was arrested:

Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese billionaire with business ties to Steve Bannon, faces federal fraud charges out of New York, as authorities investigate a fire that broke out at his apartment hours following his arrest on Wednesday.

Guo owned the 152-foot-long yacht Lady May on which Bannon was arrested in August 2020.

Guo and Bannon have been under investigation in connection with GTV Media Group, which the Securities and Exchange Commission previously accused of violating securities laws.

The FBI arrested Guo, also known as Ho Wan Kwok, Wednesday morning in New York on charges he orchestrated a $1 billion fraud.

“Kwok is charged with lining his pockets with the money he stole, 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 financing a $37 million luxury yacht,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said…

Guo consented to detention, though the federal defender said his retained attorneys plan to propose a “robust bail package.” He is next scheduled to appear in court on April 4.

The SEC filed civil charges Wednesday that accused Guo and his financial adviser, Kin Ming Je, of “multiple offering frauds” that targeted retail investors through online and social media posts and videos.

“Since in or about April 2020, Guo has conducted fraudulent securities offerings that have collectively raised at least hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in the United States and around the world. Unbeknownst to those investors, Guo and his financial adviser, Je, misappropriated a large portion of the funds raised from certain of the Subject Offerings in order to enrich themselves and their family members,” the SEC complaint said…

Authorities are working to determine whether a two-alarm fire at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel is linked to the arrest of Guo, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News. FBI agents were still inside Guo’s apartment at the time the fire broke out at 12:02 p.m., sources told ABC News.

Guo was arrested at 6 a.m. at his $32 million apartment in the building. Agents were forced to evacuate when the fire broke out six hours later.

Firefighters were called just after noon for a fire on the 18th floor, according to the FDNY. There was significant damage to Guo’s 15-room penthouse, sources said…

Guo, a critic of the Chinese government, fled China in 2014 and is viewed as a fugitive by the PRC. He appeared on Forbes’ Billionaires List in 2015, worth an estimated $1.1 billion, but declared bankruptcy in February 2022.

Bannon helped Guo found GTV, but has not been charged…

[… yet, I hope.]

Reuters has more:

… Guo, who has used other names like Ho Wan Kwok and Miles Kwok, has been a business associate of Bannon, who was arrested in a fraud case in August 2020 while aboard Guo’s yacht, the Lady May.

Trump pardoned Bannon in the final hours of his presidency. Bannon is not accused of wrongdoing in Guo’s criminal case.

The U.S. Department of Justice said it seized and is seeking the forfeiture of $634 million of Guo’s alleged fraud proceeds from 21 bank accounts, including several at the now-closed Silvergate Bank.

It said it also seized assets purchased with proceeds from Guo’s alleged fraud, including a Lamborghini Aventador, and wants Guo to forfeit the yacht.

The criminal charges carry several decades of potential prison time. Guo also faces related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges…

Court papers filed on Wednesday described a web of offerings that according to prosecutors targeted investors aligned with Guo’s policy objectives in China, and inclined to believe the self-proclaimed billionaire when it came to investing.

“We allege that Guo was a serial fraudster,” SEC enforcement chief Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.

Prosecutors said that in one offering, Guo raised $262 million through a cryptocurrency “ecosystem” called the Himalaya Exchange, which promised a so-called H Coin, also known as Himalaya Coin or HCN, with an estimated $27 billion valuation.

The indictment quoted from an October 2021 video in which Guo allegedly said 20% of H Coin’s value was backed by gold, and that he would fully reimburse investors who lost money…

This is actually quite a good summary, if you can spare the time (or want to retweet it):

The NYTimes:

… For six years, Mr. Guo has been seen as a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party, endearing himself to some conservatives in the United States and many members of the Chinese diaspora. The U.S. attorney’s office issued a news release announcing his arrest in both English and Chinese.

In 2017, Mr. Guo applied for asylum on grounds that his attacks on top officials had made him “a political opponent of the Chinese regime,” one of his lawyers said at the time.

At the same time, Mr. Guo was trying to ingratiate himself with the Trump administration. In early 2017, Mr. Guo posted pictures of himself at Mr. Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where Mr. Guo was then a member. Several months later, he told his many followers on social media that he had booked meetings at the Trump International Hotel in Washington…

Filipkowski is being sarcastic; the MAGAts he links are not:

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    Cameron

    Multiple aliases?  Serial fraudster? Serious Republican ties?  Can we be sure this isn’t George Santos?

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    Authorities should inspect this seized billionaire’s yacht for seaworthiness. Tie a line to Steve Bannon, throw him over the stern, and drag him forward all the way to the bow, checking for leaks and such. Bonus: it will be the closet Bannon comes to taking a bath in several weeks.

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose

    I do not ever want to know the answer to why anyone would kiss Steve Bannon. I would slice my lips off with a rusty scalpel from a back-alley clinic in Victorian London before I’d put them anywhere near his.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: @kalakal: One of the techniques used in money-laundering is to invoice ordinary items at vastly inflated prices. Not that I’m saying that’s what’s happening here, you understand.

  17. 17.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT: I did watch RRR on Monday. I have been reading some reviews and the critics takes are jaw dropping.  Forget the politics and the liberties it takes with representing India’s freedom struggle completely divorced from any reality, it didn’t even work for me as a movie.

  24. 24.

    Citizen Alan

    Since this is billed as an Open Thread, I have a question for Californian jackals: I have an interview on April 4 for a career clerkship with a judge in Fresno. Please sell me on Fresno or else warn me away. I’m fine either way as I know nothing. My impression from the wiki page is that Fresno is a fairly large city with a population of close to 1million and yet is somehow rural and boring.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Citizen Alan: I am not in CA, but I have been reading your comments for long enough to know that if you have a chance to leave MS you should take it.

  27. 27.

    kalakal

    Anyone stupid enough to pay $36,000 for a mattress ( twice! ) is not exactly going to have been a rival to Moriarty in his criming. I would not be surprised if he and Bannon have left a trail of day glow evidence a mile wide.

  28. 28.

    Citizen Alan

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m getting out of the South, period. I sent out 9 resumes last, from Wilmington, DE to Eugene, OR. I sent in one application to New Orleans, but otherwise, I will not consider any opportunities in Texas, Florida or any point in between.

  29. 29.

    S Cerevisiae

    I could hardly believe the mattress price either, but the thing I had to google was a photo of the Lamborghini.

  30. 30.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Brings a smile to my face this morning! Now if similar investigations can be launched at the Falun Gong.

    When the Chinese government tried to get the Trump administration to extradite him back to China, I think it was the FBI that sought to protect him, while the CIA was skeptical of Guo’s true motivations. Perhaps the FBI finally clued in that he might be a double agent, or at least is playing both sides. When he 1st escaped to the US, he was constantly fulminated against the CCP regime, dishing out all kinds of salacious tales that more likely than not were fabrications. However, he was always careful not to implicate Xi Jinping himself in his criticism, perhaps not wanting to burn that last bridge. In the last few years, his energy appears to be more focused on burrowing into the GOP & attacking other Chinese dissidents in the US.

    Whether Guo is a Chinese double agent or not, it was alway obvious that he is a cynical charlatan. It has been deeply distressing to witness his influence among some segments of the Chinese diaspora in the US & elsewhere. The same applies to the Falun Gong.

  31. 31.

    Shalimar

    @Citizen Alan: Fresno is basically a huge agricultural town.  It’s very boring, conservative but not as nuts as NorCal, and a 3 hour drive from both San Francisco and Los Angeles depending on which you favor.  You could do a lot worse.

  32. 32.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Texas GOP (among other GOP states) has been pushing racist legislation that would ban any Chinese national (including US permanent residents) from purchasing property in the state, including housing. It does not take much to imagine how much discrimination Chinese Americans (whether naturalized or native born) would also face under such an environment. Now Texas GOP is also pushing racist legislation to ban Chinese nationals from the the state’s university system. Perhaps neither will pass, & both almost certainly unconstitutional, but who knows w/ this SCOTUS.

    The Yellow Peril/Red Baiting is really reaching a feverish pitch, but this is probably just the beginning, should the emerging Sino-US Cold War continues to harden.

  33. 33.

    Shalimar

    @Shalimar: I threw in Los Angeles because a lot of people dream of visiting.  But there is nothing between Fresno and LA except farmland and mountains.  There are a lot of great places around the Bay Area long before you get to San Francisco proper.

  35. 35.

    Kelly

    @Citizen Alan: Fresno is a little over an hour from Yosemite. Best backpacking trip of my life was the John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mt Whitney. A lifetime of mountains to explore around there.

  36. 36.

    danielx

    There is enough material in this post to provide a platoon of comedians with fodder for a month.

    @Alison Rose:

    For vivid imagery of the day: number one with a bullet.

  37. 37.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    What can I say, Tangle and Whisper are a popular ship.

    Insert “I understood that reference” gif here

    I haven’t been keeping up with the IDW comics lately, but they were pretty alright

  42. 42.

    danielx

    A king size mattress stuffed with hundreds would be worth a damn sight more than 36k. But the true downside would be the odor – I’m told and have read that used currency in large amounts smells bad in the physical and metaphysical senses.

    Note: all this presumes the mattress is stuffed with crumpled bills as opposed to stacked bundled bills, which would be damn uncomfortable as well as worth a shit ton of money, so to speak. This evening’s contribution to my store of useless knowledge…

  46. 46.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Shalimar: 

    3 hour drive from both San Francisco and Los Angeles

    I think you have that confused with Bakersfield, which is 100 mi to LA and 250 mi to San Francisco. Fresno is 100 mi north of Bakersfield, which will impact the driving times that you listed.

  47. 47.

    Sloegin

    A fire breaks out at the penthouse *while* the NYC FBI office is searching it?

    Hmmm.  Yeah.  Ok.  Not that I’d go full conspiracy mode, but this is the same office that had its Trump-Russia investigator indicted for being on the take by the Russians.

  48. 48.

    Tom Levenson

    @Citizen Alan: you would be an hour or so from Kings Canyon National Park, 3 hours or so from both LA and SF, and generally in near reach of much beautiful stuff. Fresno was a true cow town when I was growing up in the Bay Area, but is more lively now. Not a bad choice, though hot as hell in the summer.

  49. 49.

    Mallard Filmore

    @YY_Sima Qian: 

    Texas GOP (among other GOP states) has been pushing racist legislation that would ban any Chinese national (including US permanent residents) from purchasing property in the state, including housing.

    That started in a different state to keep Chinese companies and citizens from buying land near sensitive military installations. Has Texas taken that to the next level?

    Just now Googled it, and the answer is YES.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/chinese-citizens-texas-are-incensed-proposal-ban-buying-property-state-rcna70836

  50. 50.

    Nelle

    @Citizen Alan: My sister lives there but is moving to Kinshasa soon.  She once said that Fresno was the most third world city in the States.  As she had already lived in Kinshasa before she said that, I’m not sure of what she saw in Fresno that led her to that conclusion.

    Edited..

  51. 51.

    Alison Rose

    @Citizen Alan: I can’t tell you anything nice about Fresno, but we’re a nice blue state with a governor who doesn’t see his job as being primarily to inflict massive harm on every marginalized group in existence, so that’s a win.

  53. 53.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Betty Cracker: you got me to Google $36000 mattresses. Thanks. Now I am going to get a gazillion super expensive mattress ads from the Google machine.  Williams Sonoma has a $25000 mattress. It is just a mattress while the other one is a bed with mattress..I thought Stearns and Foster were the premium mattress makers but they’re only asking around a paltry $8-10K for their mattresses.

  54. 54.

    Alison Rose

    @frosty: Not humid, but dry as dust and heckin’ hot. Maybe not as much as MS (never been there, praise the Lord), but many 100+ days in the summer, and in CA “summer” is basically mid-May through early November.

  55. 55.

    Jay C

    Maybe I might regret asking, but WTH is the “New Federal State of China”?

    Though looking at the lineup of luminaries touting it there, I can take a pretty good guess…

  56. 56.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Citizen Alan: Gary Condit was from Fresno. As was the guy(name escapes me) who killed his pregnant wife by IIRC throwing her off the boat. So its got that going for it. I wouldn’t think twice of going to Fresno if you get to leave Mississippi. If nothing else it gets you into the California system and maybe you can find something better in California down the road that would be a better fit for you.

  57. 57.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Jay C: maybe they’re all planning to  ship themselves off to some Sealand(AKA Federal State of China) they create somewhere near the Somali coast. The whole lot of them – Trumpov and his entourage, Peter Thiel and his entourage, Marge and her entourage, Clarence and Ginni….all of them. They can hire Erik Prince to protect them.

  61. 61.

    Jay

    @Jay C:

    The New Federal State of China (NFSC) is a political movement or lobby group created by Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon, with the stated aim of overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as the Chinese government. Launched on June 4, 2020, in New York City, the body has been referred to by its founders as a “government in exile” of China.

    A related group, the Himalaya Supervisory Organization, an NGO, is dedicated to spreading the word and acting as the means of communications with “international communities”. The group operates in Australia under the name Himalaya Australia, in New Zealand under Himalaya New Zealand and in the UK as Himalaya UK. It has been involved in protests against the Chinese government, has opposed the arrest of Bannon in the US, and has spread controversial claims about the origins and treatment of the COVID-19 virus in Australia.

    always be Grifting,……..

  62. 62.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Citizen Alan:

    My impression from the wiki page is that Fresno is a fairly large city with a population of close to 1million and yet is somehow rural and boring.

    Not too far off the mark. But…. it’s extremely close to the Sierra (like a half-hour away), if you like the outdoors. San Francisco is 3 hours away, Monterey (on the coast) is 2-1/2 hours, Los Angeles is <4 hours. So it’s easy to do weekend trips out of town.

    While Fresno is in a red part of the state, it’s somewhat mitigated by having a large Cal State university, as well as being a larger urban area. And while Fresno is hot, really hot, in the summer, it’s a far drier heat, which does make a difference.

    Plus, compared to MS, CA has far more protections for minority groups and less blatant racism, homophobia, etc.

  66. 66.

    Scamp Dog

    So Guo Wengui is his name in Mandarin (family name first, followed by given name), Ho Wan Kwok is his name in Cantonese, with the family name last for some reason, and Miles Kwok is his English name, using his Cantonese surname. So there’s nothing nefarious about all the names, it’s just all that stuff he’s doing that makes him sketchy.

  67. 67.

    Ruckus

    @Citizen Alan:

    I was born/raised in CA, have lived the vast majority of said life here  and was stationed in Charleston SC for 2 yrs, a few decades ago. That said, I’ve traveled/worked in 46 of the 50 states and CA is not bad at all. Even Fresno. There are of course other places that are not bad either but CA has the largest state population for a reason. Opportunities. Weather. OK not now of course! And yes I’ve seen it rain here in SoCal for over 40 days. At a time. Still I’ve seen a large segment of this country, I’ve lived in other states, I’ve seen a fair bit of the US and quite a number of other countries. CA isn’t perfect, what is, but it is pretty damn good. You could do a lot worse.

  71. 71.

    C Stars

    @Citizen Alan: I haven’t spent a lot of time in Fresno but it’s a sprawling suburban city with a lot of agribusiness and its own character/culture that is influenced by a large Mexican population from way back as well as more recent immigrants. Housing costs are going to be more manageable in Fresno than closer in to the Bay Area or Silicon Valley. And being close to the Sierras could be really fun. You could definitely do worse, i.e. Bakersfield.

    One thing to consider is that air quality is pretty bad in most of the Central Valley of CA, so not a good place to live if you have any heart/lung disease.

  72. 72.

    Frederick Stibbert

    Once Guo is convicted (& the feds only bring slam-dunk cases to court), they’ll suck all his bank accounts dry. When his prison term ends, they’ll put him on the next plane to Beijing.

  73. 73.

    JGreen

    @KrackenJack: Every time I hear a reference to a dry heat, I want to say: “the hell with that–it’s a hot heat”.  I don’t want to have anything to do with high heat, wet or dry (but I don’t always have a choice).

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @JGreen:

    I’ve lived and worked in places that are as or nearly as hot but it is anything but a dry heat. There is a difference. Depending on how much further away from a dry heat it gets, it gets worse. Every have to be in an enclosed room that is mostly steam boiler, as in 2 of them, and we are talking 1200+ psi/1200 deg steam on a raised mesh floor and always some water in the bilges just a few inches below the floor? Warm, damp heat does not begin to describe it. I used to have to work equipment behind one of the boilers, with zero direct ventilation. Brings a whole new concept to the idea of warm and damp.

  76. 76.

    Gemina13

    @Sloegin: ​
     

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that. I wouldn’t trust that branch of the FBI as far as I could throw Steve Bannon one-handed.

  77. 77.

    Gemina13

    @JGreen: ​
     

    Living in Phoenix, off and on, for 15 years, I heard that a lot – “but it’s a dry heat!” So’s a kiln, but people don’t curl up in one!

  78. 78.

    sab

    @Gemina13: You sound like my mom remembering being an Air Force wife from Ohio in Texas. “They say it’s a dry heat, but it is still a hot heat.”

  80. 80.

    sab

    @sab: Ohio at 90 degrees is way hotter than Las Vegas at 100.  That is why Florida feels so hot. Humidity does matter, hot or cold.

  81. 81.

    opiejeanne

    @Yutsano: I was going to suggest Clovis, too.

    Fresno is home to the Miss California pageant, or was the last time I checked. It is also the home of William Saroyan. There used to be a lot of Armenians in Fresno.

  82. 82.

    lurker

    @Citizen Alan: probably posting to a dead thread, but you asked so here are a few things:

    Lived in Fresno in my youth many years ago.  Now live in the coastal area.  I get back to Fresno multiple times per year most years, as family is still there.

    The Fresno of my youth had a lot less going for it than the Fresno of today.  Not going to belabor the past too much.

    Location – Fresno is 3-3.5 hours from SF, closer to San Jose.  About 2 hours from Monterey.  About 1.5 hours to Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo on the central coast.  About 4ish hours from LA.  About an hour from the Sierra to the east with some nice hiking and some marginal downhill and great cross-country skiing.  About an hour from the southern end of Yosemite (where no one goes) and another 30ish minutes from there to Yosemite valley in the heart of the park where everyone goes.  As someone mentioned, Kings Canyon and Mineral King are parks to the south – although over an hour drive, but great places to explore.  Your driving times and mileage may vary, as may your outdoor experiences.

    Culture – pretty limited, but getting better.  Shows that ran on broadway, for example, will make it to Fresno in a few years.  Occasional concerts from current acts, but the shows tend to be less impressive acts than you would get in SF/LA.  Very agriculturally oriented city in general.  The thing that was most striking to me at the time I lived there was how many people I knew in Fresno who really had no vision of moving somewhere more interesting – it is pretty insular in a naive sort of way.  Not proudly insular, just limited.

    Demographics – lots of white people, lots of people with Latin American roots, big Armenian population, big southeast asian (e.g. Thai, Vietnamese) population, significant but relatively small African American population.  Fresno State (no one calls it Cal State Fresno except one sub teacher I had who everyone thought was weird) draws in some interesting people, but it is as ag-focused as any school in California.

    Climate – desert dry with farmland that is irrigated by water largely from elsewhere.  Having spent significant summer business trips in places like D.C., NYC, Jackson MS, Florida and Arizona, Fresno heat is hot but dry, so easier to deal with than east coast heat and humidity, and not as crazy as Phoenix or Tucson fry an egg on the asphalt heat.  Fresno also gets really cold (desert climate).  The Central Valley also gets its own special fog called tule fog, which would sometimes cause school to be postponed a couple of hours because it was not safe for school busses to drive kids to school (that was a weird adjustment when we moved there).

    Politics – the valley is dominated by big Ag and rich people who are described as “tight” so there is a lot of right-leaning politics and not a lot of support for donating money to anything but conservative causes.  Fresno itself is represented in part by Jim Costa (D), David Valadao (R) and recently by some dude called  Devin Nunes who you may have seen mentioned.  Fresno is covered by at least two districts at the best of times, and the redder areas surrounding the light blue parts of Fresno mean that you get a mix of politics from blue dog (Costa) to … well … Nunes.

    Legal – Fresno is one of the important parts of the Eastern District of California.  There is a significant old boys network in the area.  (You practice in an area where this is likely unavoidable as well.). My experience of contacts in that area was that they were always behind the times relative to LA/SF, but that they were ultimately the same mix of reasonable and unreasonable as everywhere else. I would expect to hear things in private conversations there which would stun people in the major urban areas.

    All of that being said, my feeling would be that this is a potential clerkship with a Federal judge, you should at least take the interview and likely take the job if it comes together.  If nothing else, it would be an entree into the California legal community, and make it a lot easier to get a job at a CA firm if that turns out to be your goal.  CA firms often tend to look questionably at people who apply from out of state unless they can demonstrate some sort of tie to the state (like a clerkship).

  83. 83.

    lurker

    @Mai Naem mobile: Gary Condit and Scott Peterson were not from Fresno.  They were from further north in the valley, I think Condit was from Modesto or Merced and Peterson was from Stockton.  Yeah, similar area, but there is a lot of farmland in between those areas and Fresno.

  84. 84.

    lurker

    @lurker: tried to edit and failed –

    food – demographics and culture in the area mean that there is some pretty good food.  There are also a lot of chain restaurants and not-so-impressive places which the locals are just fine with.

  88. 88.

    evodevo

    @sab: Yes, it does…we went to a black powder rendevous in Wind River WY one summer, camping out, and wearing heavy leather clothing.  The radio said it was 99, people attending the event were dropping from heat exhaustion, and we thought it was rather balmy….not really hot at all.  These people haven’t been in KY doing farm work in August, evidently…

  89. 89.

    lige

    @Citizen Alan: I just visited some friends there who are transplants from the upper Midwest and they love it.   Standards for cities are high on the West Coast, and the ones we complain about look pretty good compared to those in other parts of the country, I think you’d find it a nice place.  You will get sticker shock from housing prices though.

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