Bannon’s Chief Financial Backer Hit With $134M Fine

The Daily Beast reports:

The financier famed for bankrolling some of Steve Bannon’s best-known ventures, as well as the far-right strategist’s jet-setting lifestyle, is in deep trouble for steering a $28 million yacht—the same boat where federal agents arrested Bannon in 2020—out of American waters.

A New York judge slapped Guo Wengui, who also uses the aliases Kwok Ho Wan and Miles Guo, with $134 million in contempt of court fines on Wednesday for violating multiple restraining orders barring him from selling or relocating the boat or any other property he controls.

The high price tag results from nearly a year of the fugitive Chinese national defying the court’s order that he return the craft to a U.S. port—an order that carried a daily forfeiture of $500,000.

Read the full article.

The yacht is being sought as an asset to cover unpaid loans allegedly owed to a Hong Kong investment firm.

Wengui is also the chief financial backer of the social media platform GETTR.

Several years ago he and Bannon flew banner planes around Manhattan which declared them to be the Chinese government in exile.

Wengui presently lives in a $68 million Manhattan penthouse.

A New York judge slapped Guo Wengui with $134 million in contempt of court fines on Wednesday for violating multiple restraining orders barring him from selling or relocating the boat or any other property he controls. https://t.co/yBwR1f7ZgS

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 11, 2022