WASHINGTON – Earlier this month, a sunburnt Steve Bannon, holding a lighted cigar and wearing a blue polo shirt with his collar up, stood in front of a camera on a yacht owned by his friend Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire.
A YouTube video shows Wengui putting his arm around Bannon as the former chairman of the Trump campaign ousted the Chinese government and denounced the alleged benefits of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. The lush interior of the ship glistens in the background.
On Thursday, Bannon was arrested by federal agents on the same hunt outside Westbrook, Connecticut, and booked in jail on charges of fraud. Although the allegations have nothing to do with the Chinese businessman, the arrest sheds new light on Bannon’s relationship with Guo, a controversial figure with his own history of legal entanglements.
Several people familiar with the case tell NBC News that there is a separate federal investigation with a company affiliated with both men, GTV Media Group. As The Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday, the FBI, New York State Attorney General and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether the laws were violated during a $ 300 million private offering by the company this spring, sources said. In a memo to potential investors, the company identified Bannon as one of several leading executives, according to The Journal.
Last month, investigators with the Mercer Island Police Department in Washington state took an incident report of an unidentified victim who had become an investor in GTV Media Group Inc., promising to launch a video-sharing platform, similar to YouTube, “that had to go huge, “according to an official familiar with the matter. The investor raised $ 500,000 to receive shares in the company at the end of May, but never received shares and could not contact the reported suspect, the report said. With effect from July 10, local authorities noted that no crime had been charged, and the FBI investigated the case.
The Mercer Island PD incident report identified the suspect as Guo Wengui, described him as a “billionaire” based in New York, and found that there were other victims. When Mercer Island police contacted the FBI, local investigators learned that Wengui appeared “to be the target of a major investigation personally and related to his business,” according to an official familiar with the case.
When they followed up, investigators in Washington learned that FBI agents had been investigating the case for about a month. “The victims named by the FBI, FTC, and local police agencies have reported fraud for failing to return on promised investments,” the official said.
Guo’s lawyer declined to comment, and Guo himself could not be reached for comment.
Guo, sometimes led by Miles Kwok, is a mysterious and polarizing figure – a self-styled crusade against Chinese communist corruption that has drawn the ire of the Chinese government but has also been accused by other Chinese dissidents. A former female employee claims in an ongoing lawsuit that he repeatedly raped her, a prosecutor he disputes. And a former Trump aide, Sam Nunberg, is among many who have accused Guo of libel; he denies the allegations.
“By exploiting his worldwide publicity, high profile, social media accounts, and seemingly endless financial resources, Defender Guo regularly uses his public platform and power to humiliate and harass his enemies,” Nunberg’s suit says. “In this case, Guo focused his view on destroying the reputation and existence of Deputy Samuel Nunberg by filing baseless lawsuits against him and blaming Nunberg with malicious, false lies that discredit Nunberg both personally and professionally.” Nunberg’s suit is ongoing.
Guo, who by all accounts made his money in real estate and securities, portrays himself in interviews and court records as a captive disturbed, proving an inside account of breathtaking corruption at the heart of the Chinese system.
“Guo is a pioneer in using YouTube and Twitter to fight for the rule of law, human rights, freedom and democracy in China,” his lawyers wrote in court papers in a federal lawsuit in Maryland against a self-described Chinese democracy activist . “Guo has exposed widespread corruption in the Chinese Communist Party (‘CCP’), several senior Chinese government officials, and their family members.”
That process itself provides an illustration of the divisions of opinion about Guo: The suspect, Hongkuan Li, a well-known dissident who claims to have participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, accused Guo on social media of the ” gangster “, a” communist “spy puppy,” “a rapist” and of “suffering from schizophrenia,” wrote Guo’s lawyers, prosecutors who say they are all false.
That process proposes to tell the story of Guo, which included a 1989 incident that turned him against the Chinese government.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. “Hold. His younger brother … tried to protect Guo’s wife and daughter and was shot twice in the exchange,” the suit says.
Guo’s brother was taken to hospital, the suit says, but “the police officers who shot him instructed the doctors to refuse him medical attention and locked the door.” As a result, he died, and Guo “promised to become a persistent and courageous advocate against the Chinese kleptocracy,” the suit says.
As a New York Times magazine profile showed in 2018, this timeline does not appear to explain why Guo grew rich in China over the next two decades through the development of real estate, a business that typically requires close cooperation with government officials, even in democracies. let alone an authoritarian state like China. In nearly three decades after his brother’s death, there is no record of Guo taking a public stand against the party he says caused it, the Times wrote.
However, there are darker accusations against Guo than hypocrisy. A lawsuit filed in New York State by a 28-year-old Chinese woman says Guo lured her to the US from China to work as his assistant and then held her captive for three years, repeatedly assaulting and raping her. The suit states that she escaped while in London and went to the Chinese embassy, and that she filed a criminal complaint with Chinese authorities.
Guo’s lawyers have denied the allegations in court papers. A lawyer for Guo told NBC News that Guo reiterated his denial of the allegations.
In a statement, Guo’s lawyer also said: ‘Mr. Guo is aware of the situation in which Mr. Bannon has been a strong ally in the fight for freedom and democracy in China. The recent attempts of Mr. Guo with Mr. Bannon in the fight for democracy in China had nothing to do with the organization We Build the Wall or the activities of Mr. Bannon with that organization. Mr. Guo appreciates that unlike the Chinese Communist Party, the United States of America has accused all individuals in the United States, including Mr. Bannon, of suspicion of innocence and the right to a fair trial before an impartial judge. “
In 2017, as Guo’s public profile in the US began to grow, a Voice of America journalist, a government-funded news service, hired him to conduct interviews. The plan was to broadcast a live interview on social media for three hours, but top officials at Voice of America ordered that it stop after an hour and 20 minutes, according to documents and interviews, because they were busy making unverified accusations.
Guo accused the VOA of being infiltrated by Chinese intelligence, a serious charge that throws the agency into turmoil. But an investigation by independent journalism experts – and an investigation by the State Department Inspector General – concluded that the decision was based solely on journalistic principles, VOA officials said. The journalist who conducted the interview, the head of VOA’s Mandarin Service, was fired.
In a 2019 tweet, journalist Sasha Gong quoted Bannon as saying, “Voice of America tried to wipe out all truth-tellers about China in Mandarin Service. VOA executives betrayed American people, Chinese.”
Earlier this year, a Bannon ally, Michael Pack, became the head of the US Global Media Agency, which includes the VOA, following a lengthy confirmation delay in his confirmation from the House of Representatives.
The veteran journalists responsible for the VOA, Amanda Bennett and Sandra Sugawara – who were both involved in the decision to stop the Guo interview – resigned immediately.
