Born into poverty in rural China, Mr. Guo, whose present age has been variously characterised as 53 to 56, developed a refined type, preferring tailor-made Brioni fits and luxurious automobiles. When Federal Bureau of Investigation brokers raided his properties final 12 months, they discovered two mattresses value $36,000 every, a $31,000 mattress, a $140,000 piano and a number of other automobiles, together with a Bugatti Chiron Tremendous Sport, a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce.
In exile, Mr. Guo mounted a marketing campaign in 2017 to discredit China’s anticorruption chief forward of an essential Communist Get together assembly that fall. In doing so, he constructed up a big following of supporters each inside China and among the many huge Chinese language diaspora, although his claims about corruption within the high ranks of the Communist Get together couldn’t be substantiated by The New York Occasions.
That very same 12 months, the Chinese language authorities mounted an unsuccessful marketing campaign to repatriate Mr. Guo, tapping Steve Wynn, the finance chairman of the Republican Nationwide Committee who ran a on line casino resort within the Chinese language territory of Macau, together with Elliott Broidy, the deputy chairman, to influence Mr. Trump.
By then, Mr. Guo had develop into a member of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Palm Seashore, Fla., membership, and had begun bringing outstanding allies of the president into his orbit, together with Mr. Bannon later that 12 months.
Because the 2020 election approached, Mr. Guo’s U.S.-based media community, GTV, tried to affect the election by selling fabricated contents of a laptop computer belonging to Hunter Biden, a son of then-candidate Joe Biden. After the election, his community helped fund the so-called Million MAGA March in assist of Mr. Trump. Mr. Guo additionally helped finance a courtroom problem to Mr. Biden’s election victory in Georgia, Mom Jones journal reported.
