The Securities and Exchange Commission has sanctioned related companies Guo Wengui, the fugitive Chinese billionaire who fled the nation in 2014 and has since been ungrateful with several prominent rights personalities in the US, for more than half a trillion dollars.
In a Press release, the SEC announced reached an agreement with three media companies linked to Guo – GTV Media Group Inc., Saraca Media Group Inc. and Voice of Guo Media Inc. — for $ 539 million for allegations that they made an “unregistered illegal offer of common shares of GTV” and broke the investor. protection laws while applying for investments to more than 5,000 people. The SEC also accused GTV and Saraca of promoting another unregistered illegal offer of a “security of digital assets called G-Coins or G-Dollars.” According to the SEC, while companies continually promoted an online platform where both cryptocurrencies could be used to make transactions, promising “a likelihood of significant returns,” neither of them ever bothered to develop it. Regulators also claimed that companies never made multiple mandatory disclosures to the SEC or the public.
The proceeds of both efforts were confused, the SEC wrote, and reached $ 487 million. In June 2020, according to the settlement, Saraca transferred $ 100 million of the stock offer to a hedge fund that invested $ 30 million in currency speculation; the fund has suffered a loss of $ 29.2 million in this bet.
According to the Wall Street Journal, after some investors in the company believed the three companies were fraudulent, Guo’s fan club began meeting outside the critics’ home:
GTV’s fundraising had deeply divided the Chinese diaspora in the United States, with many investors later growing convinced that they had been defrauded. After some of these people began contacting the SEC and law enforcement, Mr. Guo repeatedly attacked them online, calling them representatives of the Communist Party of China. Mr. Guo’s supporters began appearing at the home of his detractors.
G / O Media may receive a commission
While all three companies do not admit liquidation defaults, according to the newspaper, the total cash amounts to one of the most important enforcement actions the SEC has taken this fiscal year (ending in September). The SEC press release does not do so in person nom Guo.
“Thousands of investors bought GTV shares, G coins and G dollars based on the request of the the general public with limited disclosures, “said Richard R. Best, director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.” The resources ordered by the Commission today, which include a fair distribution of funds, will provide significant relief. to investors in these illegal offers “.
Guo is at the center of a network of marginal media, like GTV, which promotes it relentlessly and its worldview.including claims of deception on the new coronavirus, who believes that the Communist Party of China (CCP) deliberately published as a firearm and other conspiracy theories about the Chinese government.
Guo has tried to darken his real roles in shady web of multimedia entities which in some cases are only identifiable as linked to him because he has publicly indicated so. The offers also meant a certain financial deviation that raised eyebrows. For example, the Wall Street Journal previously reported it was said that investors in the GTV offer should send funds to Voice of Guo Media, which would then invest in GTV on its behalf.
Since moving to the United States, it has become a source of social media member-oriented from the Chinese diaspora and cozy to influential American right, such as former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who was the executive chairman of far-right Breitbart. (When Bannon was arrested in August 2020 for his alleged role in scheme to attack Trump supporters with a fake GoFundMe “Build the Wall,” was aboard Guo’s yacht.) When Jason Miller, one of Donald Trump’s top aides, recently left the former president’s service, he made to promote GETTR, a seemingly, social media network was launched at least in part with funding from Guo’s family foundation.
Although GETTR originally served as a kind of anti-CPC content exchange center and its promotional advertising was covered with GTV entity logos, in late June, Guo announced that the site’s servers were would delete all existing content and users, according to Politico. Days later, it was relaunched as refuge of free expression for Trump supporters. It was fast attacked by hackers, and has been in the news especially lately after its almost total lack of moderation caused the flood with hentai, Pro-Islamic state propaganda i child sexual abuse material. In accordance with Vici, new user registrations had slowed to a crawl by the end of August, while many of the most prominent GETTR accounts, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have artificially inflated the fan count. Only 55,000 of the 1.5 million GETTR users have posted more than ten times, Vice wrote, and many of them were spam bots.