The self-exiled Chinese businessman misappropriated hundreds of millions of dollars, federal prosecutors said.
, 54, and his financier, Kin Ming Je, faced an indictment in federal court in Manhattan charging them with various crimes, including wire, securities and bank fraud. Guo was charged first in court papers under the name Ho Wan Kwok.Federal prosecutors said the indictment stemmed from a complex scheme in which the defendants lied to hundreds of thousands of online followers in the United States and around the world before misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars.
Je, 55, has not been arrested. Guo was expected to appear in court Wednesday. His attorney did not immediately comment. Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, was one of China’s richest businesspeople, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.1 billion in 2015. Guo left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by President Xi Jinping that ensnared people close to Guo, including a top intelligence official. Chinese authorities have accused Guo of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other offenses.Guo has long argued that the allegations against him in China were false, saying they were intended to punish him for publicly outing corruption there and criticizing leading figures in the Communist Party.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a release that Guo was charged with “lining his pockets with the money he stole, including buying himself, and his close relatives, a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37 million luxury yacht.”
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