Some name him Miles Guo. Others name him Guo Wengui. To prime Trump allies like Steve Bannon and Jason Miller, he’s an ally and a enterprise accomplice. However, to federal authorities, he’s an alleged felony fraudster. On Wednesday, the FBI arrested Guo on 12 counts of felony fraud in New York. It marks one other outstanding chapter within the weird saga of Guo, who has gone from a fugitive Chinese language billionaire to a key determine on the MAGA proper. His group, the New Federal State of China, was a serious sponsor of the Conservative Political Motion Convention this 12 months.
Who’s Guo Wengui?
Guo fled China for the US in 2014, going through allegations of corruption. He has since settled in New York, the place he has develop into a vocal critic of the Chinese language regime on social media. Nevertheless, Guo has develop into a divisive determine locally of exiled Chinese language dissidents. He has claimed that many different dissidents dwelling in the US are literally secret brokers of the Chinese language Communist Social gathering (CCP) and has organized pickets to protest exterior of their homes. This has led to solutions that Guo is definitely an agent of the CCP, one thing which he has vociferously denied.
The important thing to Guo’s affect in the US is the alliance he has made with Steve Bannon, the previous prime Trump aide turned vocal advocate of former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Bannon and Guo have partnered to create the New Federal State of China, which claims to be the federal government in exile of mainland China; Guo additionally helped fund Gettr, a right-wing Twitter various led by Jason Miller, a prime 2016 marketing campaign Trump aide who has since joined his 2024 reelection effort. Gettr was developed out of a Chinese language language social media community tied to Guo referred to as Getome. On the eve of the 2020 election, Chinese language-language media shops and allies of Guo had been the first to publish the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer at Bannon’s behest.
Bannon was even arrested on Guo’s yacht in 2020 on costs of fraud over a $25 million scheme to crowdfund the development of a wall on the US-Mexico border. Authorities alleged that Bannon and his allies pocketed the cash as a substitute. Bannon was pardoned by Trump earlier than the previous president left workplace in 2021.
What’s Guo accused of?
Guo is alleged to have participated in an elaborate effort to defraud his on-line supporters in his marketing campaign towards the Chinese language authorities of over $1 billion. He allegedly did this by way of falsely soliciting them to spend money on his companies after which misappropriating the funds for private use. Amongst his alleged fraudulent schemes had been soliciting $262 million in investments in a cryptocurrency “ecosystem” referred to as the Himalaya Change, in addition to a non-public membership membership program referred to as G|CLUBS, which attracted over $250 million in funding and presupposed to be “an unique, high-end membership program providing a full spectrum of providers.”
The indictment alleges that Guo has used the cash to purchase a mansion, Ferrari and Bugatti sports activities automobiles, and two $36,000 mattresses along with utilizing cash for maintenance on his yacht, which is price $37 million. The indictment says federal regulation enforcement has already seized over $634 million in fraud proceeds from Guo over the previous six months.
What occurs now?
Guo is in federal custody and faces as much as 20 years in jail if convicted. Within the meantime, his arrest represents a serious setback for the Bannon-linked MAGA proper, with one among Bannon’s key funders going through legal indictment and having over half a billion in property seized by the federal authorities. Bannon, although, has all the time stored his eyes open in the case of Guo. Chatting with the New Yorker in 2022, the previous Trump aide mentioned, “He’s accomplished greater than anyone to wake this nation as much as the threats of the CCP as a transnational legal group and an existential menace to America. Whether or not he’s working for a faction or he’s hedging his bets, the stuff he’s accomplished and what he’s galvanized is simply relentless.”
Bannon has develop into a serious participant in right-wing media by way of his Struggle Room program, a each day livestream the place he holds forth with company to advertise his populist Trumpist imaginative and prescient of the world. Its theme music, titled “Take Down The CCP,” is carried out by Guo and has an accompanying music video displaying Guo in quite a lot of luxurious settings together with his yacht and his Central Park penthouse. The theme music might stay, however it’s unlikely that Guo will probably be in the identical luxurious settings within the close to future.
