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Epoch Times executive Bill Guan charged in US with US$67 million money laundering in alleged ‘sprawling scheme’

  • Weidong Guan, 61, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years for money-laundering charge and 30 years for each bank fraud charge
  • Indictment alleges a ‘make money online’ team and others at the company used cryptocurrency to ‘knowingly purchase’ millions in crime proceeds at a discount

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The Epoch Times’ chief financial officer Weidong Guan, 61, has been charged was arrested on one count of money laundering and two counts of bank fraud. Photo: Shutterstock Images
Robert Delaneyin Washington
A top executive at The Epoch Times, a right-wing media company highly critical of Beijing, was charged by a US federal grand jury with laundering at least US$67 million in stolen money through company accounts in a “sprawling, transnational scheme” meant to fatten the firm’s profits.

Chief financial officer Weidong Guan, 61, also known as Bill Guan, was arrested on one count of money laundering and two counts of bank fraud, and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years for the money-laundering charge and 30 years for each bank fraud charge.

Under Guan’s management, the indictment alleged, a “make money online” (MMO) team and others at the company began using cryptocurrencies “in or about 2020” to “knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds” at a discount, and then transferred the assets into accounts controlled by The Epoch Times.

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“Guan and his co-conspirators made multiple false statements in response to numerous complaints and concerns raised by banks, cryptocurrency companies, and others about [Epoch Times’] suspicious financial activity,” it said. “Guan falsely stated that the increase of funds reflected ‘profit’ from the work of [the company’s] foreign office that it had ‘donated’.”

The indictment, issued by the Southern District of New York, went on to say that after the MMO team began its operations, The Epoch Times’ internal accounts showed a year-on-year jump in revenues of more than 400 per cent, to around US$62 million.

The Epoch Times is linked closely to Falun Gong, whose followers practise a mix of meditation, slow martial arts movements and breathing exercises, inspired by Buddhist and Taoist philosophy. Falun Gong has been banned in mainland China since authorities there branded it a dangerous cult more than 20 years ago.
The publication frequently runs items that play well with right-wing groups in the US, including giving space to climate change deniers and vaccine sceptics, and tends to favourably cover former US president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee in this year’s general election.
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