Epoch Times CFO Charged in $67 Million Money Laundering Scheme

The financial manager An executive at the right-wing media company Epoch Times has been arrested and charged with running a $67 million global money laundering scheme.

Weidong Guan, also known as Bill Guan, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of bank fraud, according to the Justice Department, which announced his indictment . The executive faces a maximum sentence of 20 years for money laundering and 30 years for each bank fraud charge. The charges against him “do not relate to Media Company’s information gathering activities,” the DOJ press release said.

The media executive was accused of running a “sprawling transnational project” and leading a “Make Money Online” team to use “cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars of proceeds of crime, including the proceeds of fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, which had been loaded onto tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards.

Although Epoch Times was not mentioned by name in the indictment, as CNBC noted, Guan was listed as the nonprofit media company's chief financial officer's tax return filed in 2023.

According to prosecutors, at the time the money laundering scheme began, “the media company's internal financial accounting reflected an increase in annual revenue from the previous year of approximately 410 percent, from approximately $15 million to about $62 million.” When banks questioned Guan about the increase in funds entering bank accounts, the CFO allegedly lied and claimed the transactions came from donations.

In 2022, prosecutors say, he wrote a letter to a congressional office falsely stating that the “donations” represented “an insignificant portion of the media company's overall revenue.”

Guan pleaded not guilty Monday, CNBC reported, and was released on a $3 million personal bond and, under the terms of his bond, is restricted to New York and New Jersey.

Epoch Times, the Falun Gong-backed newspaper, has published a number of articles containing misinformation about vaccines. The Epoch Times spent millions of dollars on advertising to boost former President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, and after his loss to President Joe Biden, the outlet amplified Trump's lies that the election was stolen.

The company was banned by Facebook in 2019 after NBC News published a report that the Epoch Times had obscured its connection to ads promoting Trump and conspiracy theories about his political enemies on the platform.

In a statement released Monday by The Epoch Times, the company said it “has a guiding principle that places integrity in its dealings above all else” and that it “intends and will cooperate fully in any investigation into the allegations made against Mr. Guan. The outlet added that it suspended Guan while the case was still pending.