Steve Bannon Is Neck-Deep in Guo Wengui’s Allegedly Fraudulent Enterprise Empire – Mother Jones

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In late November 2021, Steve Bannon appeared in a reside broadcast on GTV, a media outlet that he’d helped his pal Guo Wengui launch a year earlier. Bannon applied the look to celebrate HCoin, a supposed cryptocurrency that Guo was promoting. The currency, Bannon mentioned, was a “monumental” and “extraordinary” results. Bannon also hailed the Himalaya Exchange, Guo’s purported platform for trading digital assets like HCoin. Bannon lauded GTV. He even touted Guo’s style corporation. These ventures, Bannon recommended, have been an chance for Guo’s fans, largely Chinese emigres, to hurt China’s rulers. “If you appear at institutionalization of the counteroffensive to Chinese Communist Celebration, it is fairly impressive,” Bannon gushed.

That was just 1 of several occasions in which Bannon has heaped praise on Guo and his firms, typically in venues where his words largely attain Guo’s anti-Communist followers.

On Wednesday, federal agents arrested Guo and accused him, along his former financier William Je, of stealing extra than a $1 billion from thousands of Guo’s personal supporters by soliciting investments in some of the identical firms that Bannon has promoted. Prosecutors mentioned these firms have been largely fraudulent. An early HCoin’s valuation at preposterous $27 billion, they mentioned, was fully fake, as was the blockchain technologies Guo and Bannon claimed supported it. Guo—who fled China in 2014 ahead of separate criminal charges there—allegedly applied investors’ funds to fund a lavish life style, such as a Ferrari, two $36,000 mattresses, and a yacht on which Bannon himself has lived. Guo allegedly did this whilst claiming in federal bankruptcy court to have nearly no assets. Guo, who did not get bail Wednesday, has pleaded not guilty.

In many indictments and an SEC complaint Wednesday, federal law enforcement also supplied a broader critique of the joint project Bannon and Guo have taken on more than the previous 5 years. Prosecutors recommended that an complete constellation of firms and nonprofits that Bannon and Guo have launched with each other, which they collectively dub the “whistleblower movement,” was largely a con. That “counteroffensive to Chinese Communist Party” that Bannon touted was just a suggests for Guo to line his pockets, the feds mentioned.

Bannon has not been charged with any crimes associated to Guo. Bannon, his lawyer, and a spokesman did not respond to repeated inquiries. Bannon is not talked about in any of the federal charging documents. And no proof has emerged displaying that he knew about the alleged diversion of investor funds at the heart of the charges against Guo. 

Nevertheless, Bannon gave important help to Guo’s operation. The former best aide to Donald Trump not only publicly cheered on firms that Guo allegedly applied to rip off fans, but also privately advised Guo on how to solicit investments in these firms. 

FBI and SEC agents, who are nevertheless investigating Guo’s capers, have sought information and facts about Bannon’s operate for the Chinese mogul, according to two folks contacted by agents. A single supply mentioned that agents asked for information on Bannon’s function advising Guo on soliciting investment funds in 2020.

Beginning in the spring of 2020, Guo raised hundreds of millions of dollars by supplying backers a likelihood to invest in what Guo mentioned was a private supplying of shares in GTV. Info sent to possible investors named Bannon as a member of GTV’s board.

Bannon also played a bigger function than was publicly recognized in the GTV supplying, folks familiar with the work told Mother Jones. These sources mentioned that Bannon privately advised Guo, Je, and other folks on the GTV supplying. Bannon also offered suggestions on a comply with-up venture known as G|Clubs, sources mentioned. Guo claimed that membership in this club —which price amongst $ten,000 and $50,000—would provide participants with the chance to obtain discounted stock in other Guo ventures. Prosecutors mentioned that members really received “few to no discernible membership added benefits.” 

It is uncertain how Bannon may possibly have been compensated for that operate. Axios reported that Guo paid Bannon $1 million beneath a year-extended contract that ended in August 2019 and that the guys discussed a different 1-year deal. But it is not clear if they ended up signing 1.

Bannon was also a board member of the Rule of Law Society, 1 of two similarly named nonprofit organizations Guo launched with Bannon’s enable. Prosecutors date the get started of Guo’s alleged fraud to 2018, when Bannon and Guo announced the launch of the nonprofits and claimed they would investigate Chinese government corruption. Guo applied the organizations “to amass followers who have been aligned with his purported campaign against the Chinese Communist Celebration and who have been also inclined to think [Guo’s] statements relating to investment and moneymaking possibilities,” the indictment states. Then Guo “provided false and materially misleading information…to defraud” these followers, it charges.

Bannon helped Guo market his Rule of Law nonprofits, often extolling them. In 2020, Bannon joined Guo in launching “the New Federal State of China,” which was underwritten by the identical two nonprofits and claimed to be a government-in-waiting ready to replace China’s rulers. Bannon has helped Guo push the claim that these groups pose a really serious threat to China’s government. But as Mother Jones has reported, Guo and his supporters have wildly exaggerated their activities while simultaneously applying these groups to raise huge sums of funds.

In August 2020, Bannon was arrested on board Guo’s yacht and was charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to defraud an unrelated charity. Trump in the end pardoned Bannon, but the arrest resulted in Bannon’s removal from official positions with each GTV and the Rule of Law Society. Final year, Bannon was hit with equivalent charges in New York state. Meanwhile, he has continued to market Guo’s ventures and to lavish praise on Guo’s economic and political acumen, at times calling Guo “the George Washington of the new China.” Because Wednesday’s charges, however, Bannon appears to have mentioned practically nothing publicly about his jailed ally.