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| Steve Bannon & 3 others ARRESTED, charged with border wall fundraiser fraud | Steve Bannon & 3 others ARRESTED, charged with border wall fundraiser fraud |
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| Former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, triple-amputee Air Force vet Brian Kolfage and two others have been arrested and charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors with their ‘We Build the Wall’ online fundraiser. | |
| Bannon, Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea are accused of scamming over $25 million under the guise of raising funds to build a wall on the US’ southern border with Mexico in an indictment unsealed Thursday in Manhattan federal court. | |
| While donors to the crowdfunding campaign were told Kolfage, the public face of We Build the Wall, “would not be paid a cent,” the quartet allegedly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to themselves, concealing the transactions with phony invoices and accounts. | |
| We Build the Wall “capitaliz[ed] on [donors’] interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement on Thursday. | |
| Bannon, who claimed We Build the Wall was a “volunteer organization,” is accused of receiving over $1 million from the ‘charity,’ channeled through a nonprofit he controlled. That organization and a shell company under Shea’s control were also used to channel $350,000 to Kolfage for his personal use “in a manner inconsistent with the organization’s public representations.” The men allegedly worked together on a system of “fake invoices and sham ‘vendor’ arrangements’” to conceal the payments. | |
| The four are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud each. Both crimes carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. | |
| Bannon is expected to plead not guilty, according to multiple reports citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. | |
| However, the former Trump strategist’s troubles may have only begun. GTV Media Group, a media company he launched earlier this year with exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, is under investigation by state and federal authorities over a $300 million private offering, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Wednesday. Multiple banks have reportedly frozen accounts associated with the round of fundraising. | |
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