Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui must stay jailed pending $1B Manhattan federal fraud trial, prosecutors say

New York Daily News, The (NY)

Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui should stay behind bars until he faces trial in a $1 billion fraud case because he could easily flee the country with one of his numerous passports and the means to flee, Manhattan federal prosecutors argued Tuesday.

The billionaire, who hosted Steve Bannon on his yacht before he was arrested, has an “exceptionally compelling motive to flee,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Finkel said at a bail hearing in Manhattan Federal Court, where Guo is accused of nearly a dozen counts of wire, securities and bank fraud and money laundering.

Guo has pleaded not guilty.

Finkel said the money man’s ties to the U.S. are thin and with the prison time he faces, he’s a huge flight risk.

Guo “barely spent five continuous years in this country and has a co-defendant in the United Arab Emirates,” the prosecutor said. “He has at least three passports.”

Finkel listed travel papers from Hong Kong, Vanuatu and the UAE — and added that Guo could have as many as 11 passports.

Prosecutors charge that Guo promised enormous returns from investment funds, but instead used them to buy a $37 million megayacht, a 50,000 square foot New Jersey mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari for his kid, two mattresses costing $36,000 apiece, and many other luxury purchases.

“This is a billion-dollar fraud case,” Finkel said. “The defendant preyed upon individuals to line his own pockets.”

Guo also squirreled away burner cell phones and high-tech spy equipment, which were found during searches of his properties.

He also tried to hide more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash.

Guo had “$394,000 in cash that he didn’t tell pre-trial services about in a safe in his mansion in New Jersey,” Finkel told the judge, not to mention $100,000 worth of gold and foreign currency and $35 million in bank accounts in the U.S., England, Switzerland and possibly Kazakhstan.

Guo, 52, whose real name is Ho Wan Kwok, has at least five aliases: Miles Guo, Miles Kwok, Guo Wengui, Brother Seven, and The Principal.

His lawyer, Stephen Cook, asked that his client be released on a $25 million bond with an armed guard and be allowed to spend the months leading up to the trial in his $9 million property in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Cook filed a 30-page letter to Judge Analisa Torres noting that other accused fraudsters, like Samuel Bankman Fried, Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Holmes, were all allowed home confinement after they were charged.

“There are many reasons why Mr. Kwok would stay and why he would never leave,” said Guo’s lawyer Stephen Cook.

He said that Guo would never return to his native China, where he’s one of the country’s richest men, because he fled the country for supporting the pro-democracy movement. He also faces rape, kidnapping and bribery charges in his homeland — which Cook has said were trumped up to smear his client.

The lawyer denied that Guo had any foreign passports and said that the cash and properties all belonged to his family members, not him.

“For the past six years he hasn’t set foot outside this country,” said Cook. “He faces almost certain death if he is returned to China. He would do nothing to jeopardize that.”

The judge said she would be issuing a written decision.