Fire breaks out at Manhattan hotel after arrest of Steve Bannon’s ‘con man’ Chinese friend

The $32 million Manhattan apartment of a suspected fraudster Chinese billionaire caught fire as FBI agents searched it for evidence hours after arresting its owner on suspicion of a $1 billion scam.

Guo Wengui, who has close ties to right-wing agitator Steve Bannon, was arrested at his $32 million apartment in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on the Upper East Side at around 6 a.m. Wednesday.

The fire broke out on the 18th floor around noon and the FBI is now investigating whether it is related to Guo’s arrest. Guo’s apartment is believed to occupy the entire 18th floor of the building.

The two-alarm fire burned for several hours before it was brought under control and FDNY crews conducted security checks.

The mystery surrounding the fire deepened on Wednesday afternoon after it emerged that FBI agents were still in Guo’s apartment when the fire broke out. No one was injured in the incident, but the apartment was badly damaged.

Guo is expected to appear in court this afternoon on 12 counts related to the massive scam. He scammed his legion of followers online through bogus investments and then spent the money on a mansion and other outrageous luxuries, prosecutors say.

The business mogul, who also goes by aliases such as Ho Wan Kwok, spent the money on a 50,000-square-foot mansion in New Jersey, a Lamborghini supercar and a luxury yacht worth about $37 million.

He also splurged on about $978,000 worth of Chinese and Persian rugs, a $62,000 television, a $53,000 wood-burning crib stand and two mattresses that cost $36,000 each, federal investigators say.

Prosecutors revealed information about the elaborate fraud on Wednesday along with extraordinary details about the luxuries acquired by Guo. Guo is charged along with his financial adviser William Je, a Hong Kong/UK dual citizen who served as a “key financial architect and money launderer” in the fraud.

The couple is said to have convinced investors to give them cash, which they said would multiply into a large return in what prosecutors allege was a classic pyramid scheme.

Investigators also seized about $634 million in 21 different bank accounts, the US attorney’s office said.

US Attorney Damian Williams said: ‘Ho Wan Kwok, known to many as ‘Miles Guo’, led an elaborate conspiracy to defraud thousands of his online followers out of more than $1 billion.

“Kwok is accused of lining his pockets with the money he stole, including buying a 50,000-square-foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari and even two $36,000 mattresses for himself and his close relatives, and financing a $36,000 yacht. luxury of $37 million”.

Guo is closely associated with Bannon, the right-wing firebrand who helped Donald Trump secure victory in the 2016 presidential election and later served as chief strategist at the White House.

Bannon was arrested on Guo’s 152-foot yacht Lady May in August 2020 on fraud charges related to the We Build the Wall fundraising campaign for a wall between the United States and Mexico.

Prosecutors in New York say Guo made false claims to his hundreds of thousands of online followers about “money-making and investment opportunities.” He founded two nonprofit organizations, the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society, and used them as fronts for his scam, it is alleged.

Guo, Je and anonymous accomplices made hundreds of millions of dollars by encouraging their followers to make bogus investments.

Prosecutors obtained arrest warrants in September last year to begin seizing the ill-gotten gains.

The SEC has also filed charges against Guo and Je today alleging “multi-offer fraud” targeting retail investors online and via social media.

“Since or about April 2020, Guo has made fraudulent security offerings that have collectively raised at least hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in the United States and around the world,” the SEC case said.

“Unbeknownst to those investors, Guo and his financial adviser, Je, misappropriated a large portion of the funds raised from some of the Subject Offerings to enrich themselves and their family members.”

Guo made billions through business ventures in China before fleeing to the US in 2014 to escape arrest on charges of bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud and rape.

He filed for bankruptcy in the US in February last year, claiming his assets had dwindled to less than $100,000.

In 2018, Guo joined Bannon in trying to overthrow China’s communist government. They staged a stunt in which a plane with an anti-CCP banner flew over the Statue of Liberty.

Guo also shed his own blood in a document that promised to overthrow the party of Chinese President Xi Jinping.