An exiled Chinese businessman with ties to former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been charged in the US with orchestrating a conspiracy to defraud his online followers out of more than $1bn.
Authorities said Guo Wengui cheated thousands of followers since 2018 by promising “outsized” investment returns, then using the money to fund a lavish lifestyle.
He allegedly bought himself and his family a $37m yacht, a 50,000 square-foot mansion in New Jersey, a $3.5m Ferrari for his son, a $62,000 TV and two $36,000 mattresses, according to authorities.
Guo, 52, was charged with 12 counts including wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.
He was arrested on Wednesday, and pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court. The judge ordered him to be detained without bail.
Image: Steve Bannon is a former adviser to Donald Trump
On the day of his arrest, Guo’s apartment in a Manhattan hotel was found on fire, NBC reported a source familiar with the matter as saying.
An FBI spokesperson said officers were at the apartment when the fire broke out, after Guo was already in custody.
US attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Guo had been “lining his pockets with the money he stole”.
The US government has seized $634m from 21 bank accounts associated with Guo, as well as assets including a Lamborghini.
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Guo’s financial adviser, Kin Ming Je, was also charged with the same counts, as well as obstruction of justice.
Je, who lives in London and is also known as William Je, has not been arrested yet.
Guo, who has used other names including 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.
Trump pardoned Bannon in the final hours of his presidency.
Image: The Lady May yacht, worth $37m, was allegedly bought with the proceeds of the fraud conspiracy. Pic: Reuters/NBC New York
Guo was once believed to be among the richest people in China. He left in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by President Xi Jinping. Chinese authorities have accused Guo of rape, kidnapping and bribery.
Guo has argued the allegations against him in China were false, and were meant to punish him for publicly outing corruption and criticising leading figures in the Communist Party.
Anti-Trump protests took place across America on Saturday, with demonstrators decrying the administration’s immigration crackdown and mass firings at government agencies.
Events ranged from small local marches to a rally in front of the White House and a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration of the start of the Revolutionary War 250 years ago.
Thomas Bassford, 80, was at the battle reenactment with his two grandsons, as well as his partner and daughter.
He said: “This is a very perilous time in America for liberty. I wanted the boys to learn about the origins of this country and that sometimes we have to fight for freedom.”
At events across the country, people carried banners with slogans including “Trump fascist regime must go now!”, “No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state,” and “Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight,” referencing the university’s recent refusal to hand over much of its control to the government.
Some signs name-checked Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian citizen living in Maryland, who the Justice Department admits was mistakenly deported to his home country.
People waved US flags, some of them held upside down to signal distress. In San Francisco, hundreds of people spelt out “Impeach & Remove” on a beach, also with an inverted US flag.
People walked through downtown Anchorage in Alaska with handmade signs listing reasons why they were demonstrating, including one that read: “No sign is BIG enough to list ALL of the reasons I’m here!”
Image: Pic: AP
Protests also took place outside Tesla car dealerships against the role Elon Musk ahas played in downsizing the federal government as de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The protests come just two weeks after similar nationwide demonstrations.
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Organisers are opposing what they call Mr Trump’s civil rights violations and constitutional violations, including efforts to deport scores of immigrants and to scale back the federal government by firing thousands of government workers and effectively shuttering entire agencies.
The Trump administration, among other things, has moved to shutter Social Security Administration field offices, cut funding for government health programs and scale back protections for transgender people.
US vice president JD Vance has met with Pope Francis.
The “quick and private” meeting took place at the Pope’s residence, Casa Santa Marta, in Vatican City, sources told Sky News.
The meeting came amid tensions between the Vatican and the Trump administration over the US president’s crackdown on migrants and cuts to international aid.
No further details have been released on the meeting between the vice president and the Pope, who has been recovering following weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.
Mr Vance, who is in Rome with his family, also met with the Vatican’s number two, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
The Vatican said there had been “an exchange of opinions” over international conflicts, migrants and prisoners.
According to a statement, the two sides had “cordial talks” and the Vatican expressed satisfaction with the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting freedom of religion and conscience.
“There was an exchange of opinions on the international situation, especially regarding countries affected by war, political tensions and difficult humanitarian situations, with particular attention to migrants, refugees and prisoners,” the statement said.
Francis has previously called the Trump administration’s deportation plans a “disgrace”.
Mr Vance, who became Catholic in 2019, has cited medieval-era Catholic teaching to justify the immigration crackdown.
The pope rebutted the theological concept Mr Vance used to defend the crackdown in an unusual open letter to the US Catholic bishops about the Trump administration in February, and called Mr Trump’s plan a “major crisis” for the US.
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” the Pope said in the letter.
Mr Vance has acknowledged Francis’s criticism but said he would continue to defend his views. During an appearance in late February at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, he did not address the issue specifically but called himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledged there were “things about the faith that I don’t know”.
While he had criticised Francis on social media in the past, recently he has posted prayers for the pontiff’s recovery.