Chinese businessman found guilty of fraud by US court

Self-exiled Chinese businessman, Guo Wengui, has been convicted by a US court of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from online followers.

He was found guilty on nine out of the 12 criminal counts he faced, including racketeering, fraud and money laundering.

Guo’s sentencing has been scheduled for 19 November and could face decades behind bars. He has been in prison since his arrest in March 2023.

He is a critic of the Chinese Communist party and was an associate of Stephen Bannon, an ex-White House chief strategist under former president Donald Trump.

Prosecutors said Guo raised more than $1bn (£770bn) from online followers, who joined him in investment and cryptocurrency schemes between 2018 and 2023.

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.

“Thousands of Guo’s online followers were victimised so that Guo could live a life of excess,” the US Attorney in Manhattan, Damian Williams, said after the verdict.

Guo’s political activism and his links to high-profile, right-wing US politicians and activists earned him hundreds of thousands of online followers, most of them Chinese people living in Western countries.

Guo’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to sway the jury by saying their client was not driven by money.

Instead, they portrayed him as a fervent opponent of China’s political system and his ostentatious lifestyle was a critique of the Chinese Communist Party.

After his arrival in the US in 2017, Guo’s outspoken opposition to China’s rulers inspired several ventures with Bannon.

They appeared frequently together in online videos, and in 2020 they launched a campaign called the New Federal State of China, with the goal of overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party.

Later that year, Bannon was arrested over an unrelated fraud case while on Guo’s yacht in Connecticut. He was later pardoned by then-president Donald Trump.

Bannon is currently serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.