A self-exiled billionaire Chinese business tycoon once believed to be among China's wealthiest men was sentenced Monday to 30 years in a US prison for a massive financial fraud. Guo Wengui, who fled China a decade ago and reinvented himself as a US-based Communist Party critic, was sentenced by US District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan, the AP reports. Prosecutors had asked that he serve at least 30 years in prison, saying his "astonishing" fraud from 2018 to 2023 "destroyed hundreds of lives" and left "a wreckage of victims and families who have been devastated financially, emotionally, and psychologically" despite his claims that many followers still trust him.
The judge, in sentencing him, read snippets of letters she received from victims who described losing their life savings and developing fear, severe anxiety, and losing family members. "Mr. Guo preyed on those seeking to bring democracy to China," Torres said. She also said that to this day, Guo "takes no responsibility for his actions and instead insists incredibly his conduct caused no loss and harmed no one." She said he "has called upon supporters to harass and intimidate those who dare to speak out against him."
- Guo grew so close to conservative political strategist Steve Bannon that they announced a joint initiative to overthrow the Chinese government in 2020. He lived in a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park and had joined President Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida golf club before his New York arrest and detention without bail three years ago.
- Prosecutors said in court papers that his ill-gotten riches fueled "a lifestyle of extraordinary excess and indulgence, a gilded life of mansions, yachts, race cars, designer clothes, and luxury furnishings."
- Guo was convicted of nine of 12 criminal charges, including racketeering conspiracy, during a seven-week trial that prosecutors said showcased his deception of thousands of investors in bogus deals that enabled Guo's lavish lifestyle.
- In a court filing, Guo's lawyers wrote that he was the victim of the Chinese Communist Party's "grand, pervasive, and life threatening" pursuit of him. They alleged that the party recruited elites in US business, entertainment and politics to conspire against him. The lawyers said Guo's wealth grew as his family became the largest shareholder of China's largest publicly traded securities company, but he became a target of Chinese government officials as he exposed them as corrupt and they began to claim he was a US operative. Eventually, the lawyers wrote, Guo moved to Hong Kong, London, and then New York in 2017.
- Prosecutors say Guo convinced hundreds of thousands of people to invest a total of more than $1 billion in entities he controlled, including his media company, GTV Media Group Inc., and his so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange.
- Given a chance to speak before hearing his sentence, Guo protested his treatment in jail, saying he fainted and fell down at 5am Monday. He said doctors at a hospital said he should stay there for treatment, but he was returned to jail and repeatedly vomited on the trip back. He said a doctor visited him in jail before he was brought to the courthouse. "When I came here, I said I have a stomach ache, I need to go to the bathroom, I don't feel well," Guo said through an interpreter. "The reason I came to the US was to destroy the CCP," Guo said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
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