Guo Wengui spent part of his sentencing hearing in Manhattan talking about his stomach. “I have a tummy ache, I need to go to the bathroom, I don’t feel well,” he told the court through an interpreter, describing how he felt when he arrived. Later he wiped his mouth repeatedly with a tissue.
Judge Analisa Torres then sentenced him to 30 years in prison on Monday.
Guo, once believed to be among China’s wealthiest men, fled the country about a decade ago and became a U.S.-based critic of the Communist Party. Torres said his fraud cost more than 1,000 people worldwide hundreds of millions of dollars. She told him he “preyed on those seeking to bring Democracy to China” and took their money to live lavishly. She also ordered him to forfeit $889 million.
Before the sentence, Guo complained about his treatment in jail. He said he had been taken to the hospital early that morning, and he rejected a prosecutor’s description of him as a malingerer faking illness. He said he vomited repeatedly on the way back to jail before being brought to court.
On the case itself he said little. “The reason I came to the US was to destroy the CCP,” he said.
Torres read snippets of letters from victims. They described losing their life savings, feeling severely anxious and ashamed, and having family members turn on them over their investment choices. The judge said Guo “takes no responsibility for his actions and instead insists incredibly his conduct caused no loss and harmed no one.” She added that he “has called upon supporters to harass and intimidate those who dare to speak out against him.”
Wei Chen, a victim who testified at trial, told Torres the fraud “destroyed my life” and that of her family.
Prosecutors had asked for at least 30 years. They called the fraud, which ran from 2018 to 2023, “astonishing” and said it “destroyed hundreds of lives.” They said the money paid for “mansions, yachts, race cars, designer clothes and luxury furnishings.” By their account, Guo persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to put more than $1 billion into entities he controlled, among them his media company GTV Media Group Inc., the Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange. A jury convicted him on nine of 12 charges after a seven-week trial.
His lawyers argued he was a target of the Chinese Communist Party’s “grand, pervasive, and life threatening” pursuit. They said a long term would only validate Beijing’s smear campaign, and noted that defendants in similar cases got two to four years. Chinese authorities have accused him of rape, kidnapping and bribery. Guo says the allegations are false.
Before his arrest three years ago, Guo had grown close to political strategist Steve Bannon, and the two announced a joint initiative to overthrow the Chinese government in 2020. He lived in a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park. As he left the courtroom Monday, supporters applauded and shouted toward him.
