Companies Tied to Fugitive Chinese Billionaire Behind Right-Wing Social Network Must Pay SEC $539 Million Settlement

The Securities and Exchange Commission has penalized firms tied to Guo Wengui, the fugitive Chinese billionaire who fled the nation in 2014 and has since ingratiated himself with a number of distinguished right-wing personalities within the U.S., to the tune of over half a billion {dollars}.

In a press release, the SEC introduced it has reached a settlement with three media firms tied to Guo—GTV Media Group Inc., Saraca Media Group Inc., and Voice of Guo Media Inc.—for $539 million over claims that they performed an “illegal unregistered offering of GTV common stock” and broke investor-protection legal guidelines whereas soliciting investments from over 5,000 people. The SEC additionally accused GTV and Saraca of selling one other unlawful unregistered providing of a “digital asset security referred to as either G-Coins or G-Dollars.” According to the SEC, although the businesses frequently promoted a web-based platform the place the 2 cryptocurrencies might be used for transactions, promising “a likelihood of significant returns,” neither of them ever bothered to develop it. Regulators additionally claimed the businesses by no means made numerous obligatory disclosures to the SEC or the general public.

The proceeds of each efforts have been commingled, the SEC wrote, and got here to round $487 million. In June 2020, the settlement alleges, Saraca transferred $100 million of the inventory providing to a hedge fund that invested $30 million of it in forex hypothesis; the fund has since taken a lack of $29.2 million on that wager.

According to the Wall Street Journal, after a number of the traders within the enterprise got here to consider the three firms have been fraudulent, Guo’s fan membership began gathering outdoors the properties of critics:

The fundraising by GTV had deeply divided the Chinese diaspora within the U.S., with many traders within the enterprise later growing convinced that they had been defrauded. After a few of these individuals started contacting the SEC and legislation enforcement, Mr. Guo attacked them repeatedly on-line, calling them proxies for China’s Communist Party. Supporters of Mr. Guo then started displaying up on the properties of his detractors.

Though the three firms aren’t admitting wrongdoing within the settlement, in accordance with the Journal, the money totals quantity to one of many largest enforcement actions taken by the SEC this fiscal 12 months (ending in September). The SEC press launch doesn’t personally identify Guo.

“Thousands of investors purchased GTV stock, G-Coins, and G-Dollars based on the respondents’ solicitation of the general public with limited disclosures,” Richard R. Best, director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office, mentioned within the launch. “The remedies ordered by the Commission today, which include a fair fund distribution, will provide meaningful relief to investors in these illegal offerings.”

Guo is on the middle of a community of fringe media outlets, akin to GTV, which relentlessly promote him and his worldview—including hoax claims concerning the novel coronavirus, which he believes the Communist Party of China (CPC) intentionally launched as a bioweapon, and different conspiracy theories concerning the Chinese authorities.

Guo has sought to obscure his precise roles at a shady web of media entities that in some circumstances are solely identifiable as tied to him as a result of he has publicly indicated so. The choices additionally allegedly concerned some eyebrow-raising monetary misdirection. For instance, the Wall Street Journal previously reported that traders within the GTV providing have been instructed to ship funds to Voice of Guo Media, which might then make investments it in GTV on their behalf.

Since transferring to the U.S. he has develop into a social media powerhouse targeting members of the Chinese diaspora and cozied as much as influential U.S. right-wingers, akin to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, previously the manager chairman of far-right outlet Breitbart. (When Bannon was arrested in August 2020 for his alleged position in a scheme to bilk Trump supporters with a bogus “Build the Wall” GoFundMe, he was on board Guo’s yacht.) When Jason Miller, one among Donald Trump’s senior aides, just lately left the ex-president’s service, he did so to advertise GETTR, a social media community apparently launched not less than partly with funding sourced from Guo’s household basis.

While GETTR initially served as a form of clearinghouse for anti-CPC content material and its promotional promoting was plastered with the logos of GTV entities, in late June, Guo introduced the location’s servers can be wiped of all current content material and customers, according to Politico. Days later, it relaunched as a free-speech haven for Trump supporters. It was promptly attacked by hackers, and it has largely been within the information as of late after its near-total lack of moderation resulted in it being flooded with hentai, pro-Islamic State propaganda, and child sex abuse material. According to Vice, new consumer registrations had slowed to a crawl by late August, whereas lots of the extra distinguished GETTR accounts like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s have artificially inflated follower counts. Only 55,000 of GETTR’s 1.5 million customers have posted greater than 10 instances, Vice wrote, and lots of of them have been spambots.