The Bobster
Senior News Editor since 2004
Cops probe whether fire at Chinese billionaire’s NYC pad was set remotely
Authorities are trying to determine if the fire at Gue Wengui’s palatial Manhattan apartment at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, which sources said was also wired for sound, was started remotely …
nypost.com
Cops probe whether fire at Chinese billionaire’s NYC pad was set remotely
By
Jennifer Gould,
Joe Marino and
Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
March 16, 2023 5:25pm
Updated
Authorities are investigating whether a mysterious blaze inside the palatial Manhattan apartment of Chinese billionaire and accused fraudster Guo Wengui was sparked remotely, sources told The Post Thursday.
Guo, a controversial figure whose real name is Ho Wan Kwok, also had the 18th-floor luxury apartment overlooking Central Park wired for sound to record his visitors, the sources said.
“It was absolutely wired,” the source said of Guo’s luxury apartment at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue. “Everything that happened in there, especially in the solarium, was recorded. Every word.
“The fire was probably not started by a person in the space. It was started somehow remotely, and the whole apartment was wired.”
The fire broke out Wednesday as FBI agents were still searching it, after charging Guo with running a billion-dollar fraud scheme and feeding his lavish lifestyle with the proceeds.
The sources said the flames destroyed “the beautiful wood-paneled library — there was a bar in there.”
It was not clear what method may have been used to start the blaze remotely, but the FBI and FDNY are investigating the matter.
Guo, a Chinese exile and pal of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, is charged with running a lucrative fraud scheme and using the ill-gotten gains to buy a $26.5 million New Jersey mansion, a $37 million yacht and splurging on $36,000 mattresses a $140,000 piano, according to federal prosecutors.
The controversial billionaire amassed a huge online following after launching two nonprofits in 2018 critical of the Chinese Communist Party, the feds said.
Guo and his alleged co-conspirator, Kin Ming, then set up several businesses, including a loan company, a media group and a members-only club, then siphoned off more than $1 billion from followers, prosecutors said.
He allegedly hosted the likes of Tony Blair inside the spacious apartment, sources said.
Authorities are trying to determine if the fire at Chinese billionaire Wengui’s Manhattan townhouse was started remotely after his federal fraud arrest Wednesday.REUTERS 
The Sherry-Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue on Wednesday.APIt was Blair who wrote a letter of introduction that got Guo into a higher social circle.
“No one knew him, and he definitely would not have gotten in without that letter,” the source said. “It gave him a lot of standing he might not have had without that letter.”
Guo also has business and political ties to Bannon, ex-chief adviser to former President Donald Trump. Bannon was even arrested on Guo’s yacht in 2022 for his alleged role in a scheme to defraud investors of a plan to privately construct a US-Mexico border wall.
In 2020, Guo and Bannon started a political group with the aim of overthrowing the ruling Communist government in China. The group made headlines when planes pulled banners with their insignia across the New York skyline.
He bought the Manhattan penthouse for $67.5 million in 2015, according to property records.
Guo was hit with 12 counts in the alleged fraud scheme in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if he’s convicted.