The Securities and Exchange Commission happened to have filed charges against exiled businessman Miles Guo of China, as well as William Je, who happens to be a financial advisor. This is in relation to alleged fraudulent activities carried out by the duo to the tune of $850 million.
As per the complaint filed, from the month of April 2020, Miles Guo, who also happens to be going under the name of Ho Wan Kwok, along with Miles Kwok, Wengui Guo, and Brother Seven, along with William Je, his financial advisor, allegedly managed to embezzle a great amount of the funds that they had obtained from investors. This money was utilized by them for personal requirements, as well as for their family members. In the complaint, they are also mentioned as relief defendants.
A typical case scenario that is mentioned is with regards to a private placement offering of common stock in GTV Media Group. Guo and Je supposedly managed to siphon off the amount of $100 million of funds contributed by investors and stashed them in the account of his son’s firm.
Further to that, he also managed to fudge investor proceeds in the case of two more offerings for being able to maintain his high living. Then too, there was a fudging to the amount of $40 million for the buying and renovation of a New Jersey mansion. A Ferrari car was also bought for his son for the amount of $3.5 million.
Guo was also charged, along with G Club Operations and Mountains of Spice, for violating terms of laws pertaining to securities in relation to these offerings. For a fourth offering, for which it was only Guo, the charge is that a great amount of money was raised from investors, with the help of crypto asset security, known as Himalaya Coin, along with a connected stablecoin. Gou has also misled investors in matters of H-Coin.
According to the Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, Gurbir S Grewal, Guo happens to be a habitual fraudster who managed to create an image of himself as being an extremely reliable and honest person in order to be able to hoodwink people he was connected with.
The SEC happens to be seeking permanent injunctions against Guo, as well as Je, along with a disgorgement of ill-found gains, civil penalties, and officer and director bars. They also want Guo to be disallowed to engage in any kind of securities whatsoever. Even the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York happened to have filed charges against the duo.
In another connected case, in the month of September 2021, the SEC had filed charges against GTV, along with two others, for carrying out an unlawful unregistered offering of the firm’s common stock and also with an unlawful unregistered offering of crypto asset security.
The SEC was able to get over $454 million, in terms of disgorgement, along with prejudgement interest, as well as penalties. This included around $70 million that had been shifted to the hedge fund. The funds are currently being disbursed to respective investors.
At the present moment in time, the investigation being carried out by SEC has William Conway, Amanda Rios, Kerri Palen, Daniel Loss, and Sandeep Satwaleker looking into matters. The supervision is being carried out by Thomas P Smith Jr. The litigation will have Loss, Conway, and Rios as the leaders.
