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Nancy Pelosi’s son is the second largest investor in a $22million Chinese company whose senior executive was arrested in a fraud investigation, DailyMail.com can reveal, raising questions about his secretive visit to Taiwan with his mother.
As well as investing, Paul Pelosi Jr, 53, also worked for the telecoms company, Borqs Technologies, in a board or consultancy role, Securities and Exchange Commission documents show.
He was awarded 700,000 shares for his services, making him the fifth largest shareholder in the company. After other insiders sold stock in June 2021 he became the second largest – more stock than one of its two co-founders and topped only by CEO Pat Sek Yuen Chan.
In September 2019 Chinese law enforcement detained the president of one of Borq’s subsidiaries and seized copies of contracts and accounting records in a reported fraud investigation.
DailyMail.com’s revelation of Pelosi Jr.’s role in the Beijing-based company comes after he and his powerful mother visited Taiwan in a show of solidarity for the nation that China controversially claims is part of its sovereign territory.
Pelosi Jr.’s name was not listed in the official delegation sent out by the Speaker’s office. In a statement this week the Speaker admitted her son was her ‘escort’ on the trip in lieu of her husband when questioned by the press.
Nancy’s son’s ties to the Chinese firm could put the House Speaker in an awkward position over her current campaign to tackle the Chinese government’s aggression abroad and its corporate influence in the United States.
Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul Pelosi Jr, 53, is the second largest investor in a $22million Chinese company. Paul secretly accompanied his mother on her controversial trip to Taiwan last week
During their 19-hour visit the House Speaker and Pelosi Jr. were photographed alongside Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and other top Taiwanese officials
DailyMail.com’s revelation of Pelosi Jr.’s role in the Beijing-based company comes after he and his powerful mother visited Taiwan in a show of solidarity for the nation that China controversially claims is part of its sovereign territory. Pelosi Jr.’s name was reportedly not listed in the official delegation
Paul worked for the telecoms company, Borqs Technologies, in a board or consultancy role. Borqs is a Chinese telecoms company that specializes in ‘Internet of Things’ products and is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a current market capitalization of $22million
During their 19-hour visit the House Speaker and Pelosi Jr. were photographed alongside Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and other top Taiwanese officials.
The Chinese government labeled the visit ‘vicious’ and ‘provocative’ and even announced unspecified sanctions against Pelosi and her family – leaving the fate of her son’s Chinese investments in question.
After other insiders sold stock in June 2021 Paul Pelosi Jr. became the second largest shareholder – more than one of its two co-founders and topped only by CEO Pat Sek Yuen Chan (pictured)
Borqs is a Chinese telecoms company that specializes in ‘Internet of Things’ products and is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a current market capitalization of $22million.
In 2020 Nancy Pelosi announced her backing of a bipartisan bill to bar some Chinese companies from listing on US stock exchanges, and has been building a coalition in the House for a sprawling anti-China bill that originated in the Senate.
Borqs disclosed the Yunnan province police action against one of their senior executives in a September 2019 SEC filing.
‘On September 11, 2019, the Yunnan Public Security Bureau (the ‘Bureau’) detained the president, one employee and one former employee of Yuantel, the MVNO business unit that the Company is in the process of selling, for questioning,’ the company filing said.
‘Officers of the Bureau also took copies of contracts between Yuantel and Shandong Yafeida Information Technology Co., Ltd. (‘Yafeida’) and a copy of Yuantel’s accounting records.
‘According to an article published online in China on June 10, 2019 by the Economic Report, four persons from the management of Yafeida had been arrested and accused of fraudulent activities, and no further details have been released as of the date hereof. Yafeida purchases SIM cards from Yuantel and other MVNOs and mobile operators in China.
‘No charges have been made against the president or any employee of Yuantel. The Company will cooperate with the Bureau in connection with this proceeding. The operations of Yuantel and the Company are continuing as in the past. There have been no other details released by the Bureau as of the date of this report.’
Chinese authorities do not appear to have released further information on the investigation since.
According to Borqs’ SEC filings in June 2021, Pelosi Jr. acquired 700,000 shares of the company in an ’employee benefit plan’.
‘These are shares that were acquired by our officers, directors and affiliates, or that were acquired by our employees or consultants, under an employee benefit plan. Such officers, directors, affiliates, employees and consultants are the selling stockholders identified in the reoffer prospectus,’ the document said.
According to Borqs’ SEC filings in June 2021, Pelosi Jr. acquired 700,000 shares of the company in an ’employee benefit plan’. The shares made him the fifth largest shareholder in the company. He became the second largest after other insiders sold stock in June 2021
A senior executive at Borqs was arrested in a fraud investigation, DailyMail.com can reveal. Borqs disclosed the Yunnan province police action against one of their senior executives in a September 2019 SEC filing
After a sale of stock, Pelosi Jr. was left with 400,000 shares, the second largest holding. The firm’s founder and CEO Chan owned 1,108,569, the chief financial officer Anthony Chan owned 262,938, and Borqs India managing director Hareesh Ramanna owned 193,380.
The 400,000 shares Pelosi Jr. owned at the time were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, though the stock price has fallen precipitously since.
A March 2022 letter submitted to the SEC suggested Pelosi Jr. was still a shareholder.
It is unclear what Pelosi Jr.’s role at the company was.
Another major shareholder in the company was Paul Horcher, a former Republican California state assemblyman who was recalled in 1995 after voting to retain Democrat Willie Brown as speaker, nixing the Republicans’ one-seat majority.
Horcher received 50,000 shares for undisclosed work for Borqs, and did not sell any according to the June 2021 SEC filing.
The Republican former legislator was previously named as a recipient of a $4,000 donation by a Thai-American Little Rock, Arkansas restaurateur and friend of Bill Clinton, Yah Lin Trie, whose donations have been returned because of suspicions they originated from foreign donors.
Trie made the political gift to Horcher’s campaign, according to a 1997 Wall Street Journal report, after the Republican legislator defied his party and voted to retain Speaker Brown. Horcher told the Journal he didn’t know Trie.
Pelosi Jr. was appointed to the boards of two lithium mining companies in 2020 and 2021. His appointments have drawn new scrutiny following his visit to Taiwan, a lithium mining capital.
He joined the advisory board of Nevada-based Altair International Corp in December 2020. The job involves ‘making explicit introductions between Altair and potential strategic partners in the various industries of interest for expansion,’ according to a press release at the time.
Paul’s ties to the Chinese firm could put the House Speaker in an awkward position over her current campaign to tackle the Chinese government’s aggression abroad and its corporate influence in the United States. Nancy is pictured with her husband and son in 2012
Paul Pelosi Jr is pictured with top dogs of each political party. He’s seen with Republican Ivanka Trump in 2018 and his cousin Democrat Gavin Newsome in 2009
In January 2021 he also became the president of EVSX Corp, a subsidiary of St-Georges Eco-Mining Corp.
A St-Georges press release said the newly formed subsidiary is ‘dedicated to electric vehicle battery recycling and future partnerships in the development of lithium mineral resources.’
At a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday Nancy denied her son went on her Asian trip for business, telling reporters: ‘His role was to be my escort.’
‘Usually, we [invite] spouses, not all could come, but I was proud he was there,’ she said.
Pelosi Jr. has visited previously visited China with senior politicians.
In June 2016 he tweeted a photo of himself with then-Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing, with the caption: ‘China-United States Summit: Americans Pleasantly Surprised and Welcome in Beijing, China.’
He also tweeted a photo at a Chinese-sponsored tourism event San Francisco in September that year celebrating China’s giant radio telescope among other attractions, with the caption: ‘Big Saucer-Eyed China Hears Universe, Happy 67th Birthday People’s Republic of China #soldierforchange #China’.
DailyMail.com has previously revealed Pelosi Jr.’s business partners have been involved in six federal investigations and some were convicted of fraud. Investigators have not accused the Speaker’s son of being involved in the criminal activity and he was never charged.
Pelosi Jr.’s last job related to telecoms was also for a company mired in a criminal investigation.
In 2007 Pelosi Jr. was appointed vice president of a company that was embroiled in an investigation of scam calls that targeted senior citizens, whose CEO was a top Democrat donor.
The speaker’s son got a $180,000 job as Senior Vice President at data company InfoUSA, despite already holding a full-time position as a home loan officer at Countrywide Home Loans in San Mateo and having no experience in database marketing.
The company was run by major Democrat donor Vinod Gupta, who had been embroiled in a criminal investigation by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office since 2004.
Investigators claimed InfoUSA knowingly sold millions of consumers’ data to fraudsters who used the information to scam the elderly, stripping some of their life savings.
Another major shareholder in the company was Paul Horcher (left), a former Republican California state assemblyman. Thai-American Little Rock, Arkansas, restaurateur and friend of Bill Clinton, Yah Lin Trie (right), made a political donation to Horcher’s campaign
In 2007 Pelosi Jr. was appointed vice president of a company that was embroiled in an investigation of scam calls that targeted senior citizens, whose CEO was a top Democrat donor Vinod Gupta. Gupta enjoyed a round of golf with former president Bill Clinton in 2014
Investigators claimed InfoUSA knowingly sold millions of consumers’ data to fraudsters who used the information to scam the elderly, stripping some of their life savings
According to a 2007 New York Times report on the investigation, InfoUSA sold a list of 500,000 gamblers over age 55 called ‘Oldies but Goodies’, which described its members as ‘gullible’.
InfoUSA also sold lists of people with cancer or Alzheimer’s called ‘Suffering Seniors’, the Times reported. The data company denied their lists had such titles.
Iowa investigators found emails showing InfoUSA staff knew the firms they were selling to were being investigated for fraudulently targeting old people, but continued to flog the data regardless, the state’s AG said.
Gupta and InfoUSA cooperated with the Iowa investigation into the scammers and were not charged.
After the investigation was closed, the company said it had changed its practices, and that it ‘never characterized individuals on lists as ‘gullible.’ Nor does infoUSA compile lists entitled ‘Elderly Opportunity Seekers,’ ‘Suffering Seniors,’ or ‘Oldies But Goodies.’
Some believed Gupta appointed Pelosi Jr. to curry favor with his powerful mother, though Pelosi Jr. denied it at the time.
‘I don’t think that’s really what happens,’ he told news site NewsMax in 2007. ‘I don’t see it that way, but I could see why you’d ask the question… I guess you always wonder why somebody hires you, right?’