Crime & Safety
Chinese Exile Whose Swanky NYC Hotel Burned Will Remain Behind Bars
A judge Thursday rejected a $25 million bail package for Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, who faces charges in a $1 billion fraud case.
NEW YORK CITY — An exiled Chinese businessman whose swanky Upper East Side hotel burned after his arrest will remain behind bars.
A federal judge Thursday rejected a $25 million bail package for Guo Wengui, who faces charges in a $1 billion fraud case.
Guo, 54, a self-exiled businessman, was arrested March 15 by FBI agents in his apartment inside The Sherry-Netherland, a Fifth Avenue hotel near Central Park. Shortly after, feds had to scramble to leave the hotel when a blaze broke out on the hotel's 18th floor.
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Video from the fire showed plumes of smoke spiraling over Central Park.
Federal authorities accused Guo of fleecing thousands of investors by promising exorbitant profits for his media company. He is known to many Americans as the businessman on whose yacht that Steve Bannon, the former chief White House strategist under former President Donald Trump, was arrested in a criminal fraud case in 2021.
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The judge in Guo's fraud case wrote she didn't trust that he would obey court orders if released and considered him a flight risk.
Guo was considered to be among the richest people in China before a 2014 corruption crackdown sent him packing. He's accused of rape, kidnapping, bribery and other crimes in China.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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