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Guo Wengui, who was once believed to be one of China’s richest businessmen, has been sentenced to 30 years in jail in the US for running a billion dollar scam.<\/b><\/p>\n
The former property tycoon had fled China to the US in 2017, where he reinvented himself as a Communist Party critic and built a loyal online following.<\/p>\n
But Guo was later convicted on charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering<\/a>.<\/p>\n New York court judge Analisa Torres said Guo had “preyed on those seeking to bring democracy to China”, taking their money to fund his lavish lifestyle. <\/p>\n The BBC has contacted Guo’s representatives for comment.<\/p>\n Guo – who goes by several names, including Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok – was sentenced in a courtroom packed with his supporters.<\/p>\n US attorney Sean S Buckley told the BBC: “Rather than being satisfied with the many legitimate opportunities afforded to him, Guo exploited the trust that thousands had placed in him for his own greed.”<\/p>\n “Today’s sentence shows that fame and wealth do not place you above the law, and that fraudsters who victimise families to enrich themselves will be met with significant consequences,” Buckley said.<\/p>\n Before fleeing China, Guo built a fortune as a property developer and had good ties with the country’s government.<\/p>\n But he sought asylum in the US<\/a> after being accused by top Chinese officials of corruption.<\/p>\n Guo became a critic of China’s Communist regime and cultivated a wide online following among the Chinese community in the US.<\/p>\n Prosecutors said Guo raised more than $1bn (\u00a3760m) from online followers, who joined him in investment and cryptocurrency schemes between 2018 and 2023.<\/p>\n The money he raised was used to fund Guo’s lavish lifestyle which included a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $1m Lamborghini and a $37m yacht, they said.<\/p>\n Guo denied the allegations, saying the funds were used for his political activism.<\/p>\n He had built ties with other China critics, including Steve Bannon, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump. <\/b><\/p>\n Bannon and Guo often appeared in online videos and, in 2020, launched a campaign called the New Federal State of China, with the goal of overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n Later that year, Bannon was arrested on Guo’s yacht in Connecticut. Bannon was charged in an unrelated case with fraud in an alleged scheme to defraud people who funded a not-for-profit company to build a US-Mexico border wall.<\/p>\n Bannon entered a guilty plea in a Manhattan court to a first degree scheme to defraud charge and received a sentence of conditional discharge for three years.<\/p>\n He also faced federal charges over the wall campaign after he was indicted by a federal grand jury, but the prosecution came to a halt after Trump pardoned him in the final hours of his first White House term<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n