According to a report by “The Block”, the United States Department of Justice has arrested and charged Bill Guan, the chief financial officer of the New York-based “Epoch Times”, accusing him of participating in an international money laundering scheme to launder at least $67 million of illegal funds.
According to the indictment, Guan is accused of managing Epoch Times’ “Make Money Online” team, whose members and other associates are alleged to have purchased “tens of millions” of dollars of criminal proceeds, including fraudulent unemployment benefits, at a discount of 70% to 80% using cryptocurrency, and deposited these funds into tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards.
After obtaining the illegal funds, members of the MMO team and other associates used stolen personal information to open various accounts, including prepaid card accounts, cryptocurrency accounts, and bank accounts, to transfer the criminal proceeds into bank accounts related to Epoch Times. Once these funds were transferred into these accounts, they were often further laundered through other accounts owned by the media, Guan’s personal bank accounts, and Guan’s personal cryptocurrency accounts. The alleged scheme began around 2020 and continued until last month.
The US Department of Justice’s press release stated that around the time the money laundering scheme started, the media company’s annual revenue had surged by approximately 410% compared to the previous year. When questioned about the source of the funds by banks, Guan falsely claimed that the funds came from legitimate donations to the media company. US Attorney Damian Williams stated that this 61-year-old media executive is currently charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering (punishable by up to 20 years in prison) and two counts of bank fraud (punishable by up to 30 years in prison). The prosecutor’s office stated that these charges are unrelated to the media company’s news coverage activities.
According to a report by “BBC News”, in a statement sent to the BBC, Epoch Times stated that the organization “intends to and will fully cooperate with any investigation into the charges against Mr. Guan.” Epoch Times was founded in 2000 by a Chinese-American affiliated with the religious group Falun Gong.