A federal judge in New York has sentenced exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui to 30 years in prison for orchestrating a sweeping financial fraud that prosecutors say extracted more than one billion dollars from thousands of victims worldwide. Judge Analisa Torres handed down the sentence on Monday in Manhattan, also ordering Guo — who goes by multiple names including Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok — to forfeit $889 million in restitution. A jury had unanimously convicted him in July 2024 on nine of twelve charges, including securities offences, wire fraud, money laundering and racketeering.

Guo, once considered one of China's wealthiest property developers, fled to the United States in 2017 after Chinese authorities accused him of corruption. He reinvented himself as a high-profile critic of the Chinese Communist Party, cultivating a large online following among Chinese diaspora communities and positioning himself as a defender of democracy. Prosecutors argued that he cynically exploited that reputation to lure investors into fraudulent schemes between 2018 and 2023, promising lucrative returns and luxury services while instead using the proceeds to finance a lavish personal lifestyle — including a 50,000-square-foot mansion, a $1 million Lamborghini and a $37 million yacht. The FBI arrested him in March 2023 at his luxury Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park.

At sentencing, Judge Torres condemned Guo's "exploitation of a philanthropic purpose" and his refusal to accept responsibility, noting that he had "preyed on those seeking to bring democracy to China." She read excerpts from victim letters describing lost life savings, severe anxiety, shame, and fractured family relationships. US attorney Sean Buckley said the case demonstrated that "fame and wealth do not place you above the law." Prosecutor Ryan Finkel was blunter still, telling the court: "He is not a democratic activist — he is a con artist, a scammer and a thief."

Guo's lawyers pushed back, arguing that their client was himself a target of a "grand, pervasive, and life-threatening" campaign by the Chinese Communist Party, and that a lengthy sentence would validate Beijing's smear campaign against dissidents. Guo addressed the court briefly, citing health concerns and insisting his intention had always been to "destroy" the CCP. A former associate, Yvette Wang, was separately sentenced to ten years in prison last year for her role in the scheme.

The case also drew attention to Guo's ties with Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of US President Donald Trump. Guo and Bannon co-founded the New Federal State of China, an organisation opposed to the CCP. Bannon was arrested in 2020 aboard Guo's yacht in a separate fraud case involving a scheme to privately fund a wall along the US-Mexico border; he pleaded guilty to defrauding donors in February 2025. The 30-year sentence given to Guo — who is in his fifties — is effectively a life sentence, underscoring the scale of a fraud that prosecutors say destroyed hundreds of lives financially, emotionally and psychologically.