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Exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui was arrested in New York on Wednesday morning and charged with fraud for allegedly orchestrating a series of fraudulent schemes that bilked retail investors out of a collective $1.4 billion.

Hours after his arrest, Guo’s luxury penthouse apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side caught fire, burning for two hours before firefighters were able to put out the blaze. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly investigating the fire. The 15-room apartment is currently on the market for $32.5 million.

Out of Guo’s four alleged schemes, three were related to GTV Media Group, the Chinese social media company formed in April 2020 by Guo and Steve Bannon – a longtime ally and former adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump. The three alleged schemes raised an estimated $857 million.

Bannon was arrested on Guo’s yacht, the 152-foot-long Lady May, in August 2020 and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection to a crowdfunded effort to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Bannon has not been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with GTV.

Guo’s fourth alleged scheme – which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a separate civil complaint raised $500 million from retail investors – was an unrelated crypto venture called H-Coin, or Himalaya Coin. Beginning in October 2021, Guo founded and promoted H-Coin, telling his social media followers that the currency was 20% backed by gold and promising to cover “100% of investment losses attributable to H-Coin.”

Four months later, in February 2022, Guo filed for bankruptcy protection, claiming assets valued between $50,000 and $100,000 and liabilities of up to $500 million. Despite his claims of poverty, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that it seized over $630 million of alleged fraud proceeds from 21 different bank accounts controlled by Guo between September 2022 and March 2023.

Before declaring bankruptcy, Guo lived lavishly – a lifestyle prosecutors say was funded by unsuspecting investors.

“[Guo] is charged with lining his pockets with the money he stole, including buying himself, and his close relatives, a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37 million luxury yacht,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said.

Guo’s U.S. legal troubles are not his first. In 2014, the former billionaire fled his native China in anticipation of fraud charges, and became a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party. Guo, who is wanted by the Chinese government, filed an application for political asylum in the U.S. in 2017. That application remains pending.

The FBI arrested exiled Chinese businessman Ho Wan Kwok, also known as "Miles Guo," in an alleged $1 billion fraud scheme used to fund his luxurious lifestyle in the New York City area.

U.S. and European authorities took down cryptocurrency platform ChipMixer and charged its alleged operator, accusing it of laundering more than $3 billion of criminal proceeds.

The former head of Wells Fargo & Co.’s community bank has agreed to plead guilty to obstructing regulators who tried to examine allegations of sales misconduct at the business she ran, prosecutors said Wednesday. Carrie Tolstedt’s deal with Los Angeles federal prosecutors would resolve a criminal investigation into her role in the bank’s long-running, fake-accounts scandal, which severely damaged Wells Fargo’s reputation and contributed to an asset cap imposed by the Federal Reserve that limited its size. Under Ms. Tolstedt’s plea agreement, she could serve up to 16 months in prison, prosecutors said.

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Prosecutors say Guo used money raised in various fraud schemes to enrich his family and buy a $45 million mansion, yacht and multi-million dollar cars.

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A former Wells Fargo Bank executive accused of overseeing a ruse that created millions of bogus customer accounts has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges likely to send her prison for her role in the scandal. The agreement filed Wednesday in a Los Angeles federal court calls for the former Wells Fargo executive, Carrie Tolstedt, to serve a 16-month prison sentence for obstructing regulators' investigation into abusive sales practices that culminated in the bank paying billions of dollars in fines. Tolstedt, 63, also agreed to pay a $17 million fine in a separate civil settlement with the government that also bans her from working again in the banking industry.

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(Reuters) -A U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge on Monday ordered Exxon Mobil Corp to make whole 1,800 employees at two refineries for lost earnings during a suspension of employer contributions to a 401K plan in 2020 and 2021. Exxon suspended the matching employer contributions for all employees between Oct. 1, 2020 and Oct. 1, 2021 to save money while sustaining heavy financial losses during the downturn in fuel demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Administrative Law Judge Christal Key said in a ruling accompanying the order that Exxon engaged in bad-faith bargaining while meeting with United Steelworkers (USW) union locals representing workers at the company’s refineries in Baytown, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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A business tycoon long sought by the government of China and known for cultivating ties to Trump administration figures including Steve Bannon was arrested Wednesday in New York on charges that he oversaw a $1 billion fraud conspiracy. Guo Wengui, 54, was accused along with his financier and chief of staff of various crimes, including wire and securities fraud. U.S. prosecutors said the indictment stemmed from a complex scheme in which Guo lied to hundreds of thousands of online followers in the United States and around the world before misappropriating hundreds of millions of dollars.

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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voiced broad and enthusiastic support for a draft report containing over 100 recommendations on how to compensate eligible Black adults for centuries of systemic racism and slavery.