![Who is Guo Wengui?](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/vxy259ii/production/de272c139c28c187de5cccc4acd1083e949b12ac-2560x1075.jpg?auto=format&crop=focalpoint&fit=max&q=80&w=1280)
Words: Harry Shukman
Say you’re a billionaire and you’re picking up your first superyacht. Nothing fancy – just a little number like Lady May, 152 feet long, sleeps ten and has a crew of eight. You bought her because of her white marble surfaces, Macassar ebony cabinets and quantum zero-speed stabilisers so your trays of cocaine don’t spill on the high seas. What delicious thoughts must run through your head after buying it. You’ll be sparkling off the coast of Cannes… serenading the Plage Gazagnaire with the sound of Icelandic techno from your enormous speakers… inviting over a runway’s worth of Victoria’s Secret models to open a methuselah of Dom Perignon Rose Gold 1996. And with a white captain’s cap rakishly perched on your head? Naturally, old chap.
Who knows what Guo Wengui, the Chinese billionaire, first thought when he bought Lady May. But whatever dreams he must have had about sailing it round the world will have come crashing down to earth when his good friend Steve Bannon was arrested on board last month. Donald Trump’s campaign manager and chief White House strategist was sipping his morning coffee and reading a book when federal agents raided the yacht.
Bannon is alleged to have run a scam under the guise of We Build The Wall, a fundraising effort designed to support the wall’s construction on the Mexican border. It raised $25 million from hundreds of thousands of Americans, some of which Bannon is said to have pocketed along with three co-conspirators – a former Breitbart writer, a pro-Trump energy drink seller and an Air Force veteran who became a professional Facebook spammer. Bannon, who pleaded not guilty, was released from custody on a $5 million bond and will face trial in May 2021. His story now seems cut and dry.
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Steve Bannon
More mysterious is the origin story of Guo Wengui himself, Bannon’s close friend, who goes by Miles Guo and sometimes Miles Kwok. Guo had ties to high ranking Chinese officials and made an estimated fortune of $30 billion as a property magnate in China, making him one of the country’s richest 100 people. But then he claimed he had to flee in 2014 to stay one step ahead of looming corruption charges. Arrest warrants in China have accused him of bribery, fraud, money laundering and rape. He denies wrongdoing.
Guo came to New York and bought a giant pad on the 18th floor of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, a seven-bed apartment overlooking Central Park, for $67.5 million although, disputing public property documents, he says it was $82 million. He also became a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which now costs in the region of $200,000 to join. This membership might be the reason he’s still in America today. In 2017, Trump was on the verge of deporting him after his friend Steve Wynn, the gambling magnate, pressured him to do so (Wynn runs casinos in Macau that need annual approval from Chinese authorities). “We need to get this criminal out of the country,” Trump reportedly told his top aides. He relented when he was informed that Guo is a member of Mar-a-Lago, according to Vanity Fair.
Guo now spends his time making hours-long YouTube videos in which he praises Trump and tosses hand grenades at the Chinese government. He has accused, for instance, Wang Qishan, China’s Vice President, of keeping mistresses and shady business interests. This relentless criticism of the Chinese Communist Party makes him a natural ally of Bannon, who this year said he was producing a documentary that he promised would be a “devastating takedown” of Xi Jinping. After detonating his White House career in late 2017, Bannon was hired on a million-dollar contract to introduce executives of Guo Media to “media personalities”.
This summer, the couple also declared the “New Federal State of China” that aims to overthrow the Chinese government, although this project surely has all the legitimacy of a treehouse club. He hired as many as eight planes to fly banners over New York proclaiming the arrival of this new state. From a livestream on Lady May, Bannon by his side, Guo pledged to “end the Communist Party once and for all”, claiming to have “hundreds of countries” supporting him.
A lot about Guo is puzzling. His age, for instance, is somewhere in the region of 50 but he tells reporters different numbers. He says he never wears the same pair of underwear twice. He also claims that the Chinese government has been able to hack his phone and use it to control his yacht. He once bought 5,000 copies of Cherie Blair’s flop autobiography, Speaking For Myself, despite her spokesperson denying they were friends. It’s worth noting that a report alleged her husband Tony later acted on behalf of Guo to raise him $3 billion from Abu Dhabi’s royal family. Even friends of his say his past life is “riddled with holes”. How was he able to escape China’s anti-corruption drive? Is he a spy for America? Or is he a spy for China, as one of his former business associates claim?
And then there’s this new lawsuit. Just last week, Guo claimed in a civil suit filed in Manhattan that he is being stalked by the Communist Party out at sea. He said “high-powered surveillance equipment” had been used against him by a man named Hong Zeng, who rented a boat and tailed him along the New England coast up to Rhode Island. Zeng is alleged to have threatened to kill Guo and bragged that he plans to watch him with military drones. Guo seeks $1.5 million in damages.
Guo’s yacht dream has now come to an end. Lady May is up for sale – $28 million and she’s yours. It’s unclear if the lawsuit is linked, and it would be fantasy thinking to imagine it was related to Bannon’s bail conditions, which prohibit him from stepping foot onto private planes and boats. In any case, so long to those golden days at sea. If you’re interested, you can catch a glimpse of what his life onboard the luxury vessel was like – Guo posted a video on GNews.org, one of his websites. In the five minute clip, he wears aviator shades and a double-breasted suit and tie (“I love that grey on you,” says Bannon), while he cuts two melons into lotus shapes. A very sunburned Bannon, wearing a grubby purple polo neck and jean shorts, applauds slowly and tells Guo: “Miles, this is perfect. Oh my gosh… Incredible. This may be the best melon I’ve had.” A crew member approaches and asks them if they would like lunch outside on the deck. Bannon, shoulders hunched, gripping his melon slice with two hands close to his mouth, barks: “Yes”. High life indeed. Now Guo’s good friend is facing a trial that legal analysts predict will be an open-and-shut case, those carefree days are over.
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