The Mystery of the Exiled Billionaire Whistle-Blower

From a penthouse on Central Park, Guo Wengui has exposed a phenomenal web of corruption in China’s ruling elite — if, that is, he’s telling the truth.

Guo pitches himself as a former insider, a man who knows the secrets of a government that tightly controls the flow of information. A man who, in 2017, did the unthinkable — tearing open the veil of secrecy that has long surrounded China’s political elite, lobbing accusations about corruption, extramarital affairs and murder plots over Facebook and Twitter. His YouTube videos and tweets have drawn in farmers and shopkeepers, democracy activists, writers and businesspeople. In China, people have been arrested for chatting about Guo online and distributing T-shirts with one of his slogans printed on the front (“This is only the beginning!”). In New York, Guo has split a community of dissidents and democracy activists down the middle. Some support him. Others believe that Guo himself is a government spy. read more »

Even the SEC Is Poking Fun at Cryptocurrency Mania Now

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may have hit on a foolproof way to boost its popularity: Piggyback the passion for blockchain.

Less than three weeks after shares of Long Island Iced Tea Corp. surged as much as 289 percent after announcing a name change to Long Blockchain Corp., the agency responsible for enforcing U.S securities law appears to want in on the action. The Fort Worth, Texas, branch of the SEC announced its new big idea on its Twitter account on Monday:

“We’re contemplating adding ‘Blockchain’ to our name so we’ll increase our followers by 70,000 percent,” @FortWorth_SEC said. read more »

Former Hong Kong Official Pleads Not Guilty in Africa Bribery Case

A former Hong Kong government official pleaded not guilty in New York on Monday to federal charges that he tried to bribe Chad’s president and Uganda’s foreign minister in exchange for oil rights for a Chinese energy company.

The former official, Chi Ping Patrick Ho, and a former foreign minister of Senegal, Cheikh Gadio, were arrested in November and charged with money laundering and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. read more »

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies 'will come to a bad end', says Warren Buffett

The billionaire investor and his longtime manager Charlie Munger, two of the world’s most successful investors, say they’d never invest in cryptocurrencies. read more »