Epoch Times Executive Charged With Massive Money-Laundering Scheme

An executive at The Epoch Times, a right-wing media company, has been federally indicted on charges of conspiring to commit money laundering and bank fraud over an alleged yearslong scheme to use cryptocurrency to launder tens of millions of illicit dollars.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York announced the charges Monday, accusing Epoch Times chief financial officer Weidong “Bill” Guan of participating in a scheme to launder $67 million “to benefit himself and the media company.”

Epoch Media Group, which publishes a website and a newspaper distributed in multiple languages around the world, is tied toFalun Gong, the religious movement that’s also behind the Shen Yun performance troupe and New Tang Dynasty Television. The group is known for its opposition to the Chinese Communist Party and its amplification of right-wing nationalists and conspiracy theories, including the liethat there was widespread fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

A former Falun Gong believer who contributed to the creation of The Epoch Times’ Australia version told NBC News in 2019 that devout Falun Gong practitioners believe former President Donald Trump “was sent by heaven to destroy the Communist Party.”

Beginning in at least 2020, according to the indictment , members of The Epoch Times’ “Make Money Online” team “used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds” at a discount, before they and others transferred the money into accounts associated with The Epoch Times and Guan. Per the indictment, the illicit funds consisted of unemployment benefits that had been fraudulently obtained using stolen personal information of U.S. residents, among other sources.

Guan was charged with