June 30 (UPI) -- A U.S. federal judge has sentenced exiled Chinese entrepreneur Guo Wengui to 30 years in prison for defrauding investors of more than $1 billion.
Guo, also known as Ho Wan Kwok and Miles Guo, is a Chinese national who made his fortune in Chinese real estate before fleeing China, in 2014, relocating to the United States around 2015.
He was arrested in March 2023 on a series of fraud and money laundrying charges. Federal prosecutors alleged that, beginning around 2018, he led a conspiracy that defrauded his online followers of more than $1 billion through investment and membership schemes tied to his anti-Chinese Communist Party movement and related business ventures.
In sentencing him on Monday to the three-decade punishment that the prosecutors had requested, Judge Analisa Torres in a Manhattan courtroom said Guo had "preyed on people seeking to bring democracy to China," The New York Times reported.
During the trial, the prosecutors alleged that in around 2018, he created two nonprofit organizations, which he used to amass followers aligned against the CCP and who were inclined to believe his business advice.
