NEW YORK: Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese businessman and outspoken opponent of Beijing’s communist government, was convicted on Tuesday (Jul 16) in his US trial on charges of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from online followers.
Guo was convicted on nine of the 12 criminal counts he faced, including racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud, in a trial that lasted seven weeks.
He could face decades in prison. US District Judge Analisa Torres set his sentencing for Nov 19.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Guo raised more than US$1 billion by guaranteeing followers on social media that they would not lose money if they joined him in a series of investment and cryptocurrency schemes from 2018 to 2023, some of which he said would go toward challenging China’s government.
Prosecutors say the onetime real estate mogul spent the money on luxury goods including a New Jersey mansion, a red Lamborghini and a yacht.
“Thousands of Guo’s online followers were victimised so that Guo could live a life of excess,” Damian Williams, the US Attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement after the verdict.
Guo’s defence lawyers portrayed him as an ardent dissident who flaunted his wealth as part of his political critique of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and said that jurors should not rush to judgment as prosecutors had.
“Mr Guo didn’t care about the money,” defence lawyer Sidhardha Kamaraju said in his closing argument last week. “He cared about the movement.”
