Historic Bergen County estate seized after billionaire owner charged in fraud plot
MAHWAH — The owner of the historic Crocker Mansion has been charged with masterminding an elaborate scheme in which he allegedly cheated thousands of online followers out of more than $1 billion, authorities said.
Ho Wan Kwok, better known as Miles Guo, used the money he stole to float his extravagant lifestyle and that of his family, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The 120-year-old estate on Ramapo Valley Road, which sold for $26 million in December 2021, is part of a long list of Guo’s property and hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. currency seized by the federal government in the past seven months.
The list also includes a 98-inch TV, a Bösendorfer grand piano and multiple high-end sports cars — merchandise that authorities claim was purchased with misappropriated funds.
Guo and his financier, Kin Ming Je, or William Je, were charged with bank fraud, money laundering, securities fraud and wire fraud in a 12-count indictment unsealed in federal court.
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Guo, who is exiled from his native China, is an associate of former White House adviser Steve Bannon and, reportedly, a member of The Mar-a-Lago Club, owned by former President Donald Trump, in Palm Beach, Florida.
In recent years, authorities said, the tycoon established organizations known as the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society to amass a following that aligned with his purported campaign against the Chinese Communist Party.
An investigation by the FBI found he began conspiring with Je five years ago and that, as the leader of the plot, he “lied to his victims” and “promised outsized returns” if they invested in his businesses.
But those entities, authorities said, were fronts for a complex web of deceit.
One such business, referred to in the 38-page indictment as GTV, was promoted as the first platform to combine citizen journalism with artificial intelligence and state-of-the-art technology.
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Guo and Je fraudulently obtained $452 million in victim funds through a private offering of GTV stock in April 2020, authorities said. More than 5,500 stockholders invested in the company with the belief that their money would be used to grow the business, they said.
Most of the proceeds were deposited into personal bank accounts, authorities said. And a good portion of the money raised from investors was placed with a high-risk hedge fund to benefit the duo and their co-conspirators, they said.
Other entities, including an exchange program for a phony type of cryptocurrency called the Himalaya Coin and the Himalaya Dollar, were mere instruments that Guo and Je created to perpetrate their fraud, authorities said.
To conceal the source of their funding, authorities said, the duo transferred the money to hundreds of bank accounts held in the names of at least 80 individuals and organizations in the Bahamas, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S.
Authorities said Guo and Je evaded enforcement of anti-money laundering laws and bankruptcy laws by retaliating against those who demanded the return of their invested funds.
Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: devencentis@northjersey.com
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Crocker Mansion in NJ seized from Miles Guo, charged in $1B fraud plot
