A top executive at conservative media company The Epoch Times has been arrested and indicted on charges of laundering at least $67 million in stolen funds through company accounts over several years to boost financial revenue.
A federal grand jury indicted Weidong Guan, also known as Bill Guan, on one count of money laundering and two counts of bank fraud. The charges allege that Guan lied to financial institutions about the source of cash, some of which he allegedly stole from fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits. The funds helped increase The Epoch Times' revenue by nearly 400 percent in just one year, according to the Department of Justice.
Guan, the chief financial officer, was arrested Monday and unsealed in an indictment filed May 23. He has pleaded not guilty. His federal public defender declined to comment. If convicted, Guan faces up to 20 years in prison on the money laundering charge and up to 30 years on the bank fraud charge.
The Epoch Times is an obscure free paper with ties to Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China, that for many years focused solely on criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. In recent years, the paper has transformed itself into a prominent supporter of Donald J. Trump and his right-wing allies.
Prosecutors said Guan ran an “extensive international scheme” over the course of four years to use cryptocurrency to buy prepaid debit cards at discounts over the internet and then deposit the money on the cards into both personal and business accounts. The debit cards were loaded with illegally obtained funds, some of which were fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits, prosecutors said.
Damien Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the indictments demonstrate “the government's determination to vigorously enforce the law against those who facilitate fraud through money laundering and protect the integrity of the Nation's financial system.”
Guan, 61, of Secaucus, New Jersey, was taken into custody Monday evening and was being held on $3 million bail, including $250,000 cash bond, according to a Manhattan federal court spokesman. After being released on bail, Guan will remain under home detention as part of his bail conditions.
“Our policy is to place the utmost importance on honesty in transactions,” the Epoch Times said in a statement, adding that it “intends to cooperate fully with any investigation into the allegations against Mr. Guan and will continue to do so.” The company said it had suspended Mr. Guan while the matter was still pending resolution.
The Justice Department said the charges are “unrelated to the media company's reporting activities.” No other employees were named in the indictment.
The organization publishes the Epoch Times newspaper, runs a digital news site of the same name, produces a number of podcasts, and operates the broadcasting station New Tang Dynasty Television, also known as NTD.
The group was founded in Georgia in 2000 by its current CEO, John Tang, who was then a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a practitioner of Falun Gong, a sect banned in China and whose followers are persecuted.
During the 2016 election, the paper supported Trump's candidacy in the hope that he would defeat the Communist Party if he became president, a former Epoch Times staff member told The New York Times in 2020. After Trump's victory, the paper became an ardent supporter, spreading the administration's message and establishing itself as a leading right-wing media outlet.
The company also became a potent purveyor of right-wing conspiracy theories on social media, particularly Facebook, where it built a vast and complex network of pages that sometimes attracted huge audiences through viral content and heavy advertising.
In 2019, Facebook banned the company from advertising on its platform after it was found to have concealed its ad buys in violation of transparency requirements, though the company continued to thrive on other platforms. Last year, the company said it was the fourth-largest newspaper in the U.S. by subscribers, though that figure could not be verified because The Epoch Times does not participate in industry audits.
The Justice Department said the money laundering scheme, which began in 2020 and continued until last month, coincided with a period of significant financial growth for the organization. Total income in 2020 increased to $71 million from just $15 million the previous year, a 373% increase, according to federal tax returns. The following year, income increased again by more than 70% to $121 million. Those tax returns were signed by Guan in his capacity as the organization's chief financial officer.
Guan and other representatives frequently attributed their financial results to growing paid circulation and donations from supporters, at one point writing to lawmakers that “the majority of the increase is due to subscription fees.”
But federal prosecutors said the bulk of the money came from a complex criminal scheme in which Guan employed an overseas-based team he called “Make Money Online,” or MMO.
When banks and crypto trading platforms contacted Guan about numerous suspicious transactions on the company's accounts, he repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, according to prosecutors. At one point, he told a bank that the deposits represented “more donations from our supporters because more people like our media,” according to the indictment.
Guan also deposited $16.7 million of the proceeds into a personal account but did not report the income on his tax returns.
The Epoch Times has been expanding its influence in American politics by investing in its 2024 election coverage and a large-scale billboard advertising campaign in cities across the U.S. The paper has become a widely read right-wing outlet, attracting Republican supporters beyond Trump.
In January, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson hosted a screening of “The Truth About January 6th,” a film produced by the Epoch Times streaming platform that promotes a variety of right-wing conspiracy theories about the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot.
Last year, Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina read a statement into the Congressional Record recognizing The Epoch Times' “best practices and the highest principles of journalism.”
“This is all about one word,” Norman said in a statement. “Freedom.”