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Since at least 2015, The Epoch Times has been publishing far-right conspiracy theories, much to the delight of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and other Republican politicians. But as is so often the case, the actual conspiracies were calling from inside the house
The outlet’s CFO Weidong Guan, also known as Bill Guan, was arrested on Monday after having been indicted by a federal jury last month on one charge of money laundering and two counts of bank fraud — for having allegedly laundered $67 million in “crime proceeds” over the last several years.
The way the scheme worked was that people affiliated with The Epoch Times — the site’s overseas “Make Money Online” (MMO) group — used cryptocurrency to buy “tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds,” at a discount of 70 to 80 cents on the dollar from a cryptocurrency platform, that had been loaded onto “tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards.”
Then, they used stolen personal identification information to open other prepaid debit accounts, cryptocurrency accounts, and bank accounts and transferred all of the ill-gotten gains into these accounts and then subsequently into bank accounts associated with The Epoch Times, as well as into Bill Guan’s personal accounts.
If you have not already reached for your smelling salts, you may want to grab for them now because the vast majority of these “crime proceeds” came from straight up welfare fraud. You know, the exact thing conservatives are always afraid that poor people might do?
You see, most of “the prepaid debit cards were loaded with fraudulently procured unemployment insurance benefits obtained using stolen personal identification information of U.S. residents.”
At least they weren’t buying king crab legs though, amirite?
When questioned about the source of the money by the banks, Guan repeatedly attributed the 400 percent increase in cash flow to a massive influx of subscribers and donors. After all — they did claim to be “the fourth largest American newspaper by subscription count.” Perhaps — and lord we hope this is true, because it was very upsetting to think that so many of our fellow citizens were buying this garbage — it was all smoke and fraudulent unemployment bennies in the first place!
The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 as a Chinese language newspaper distinguished by its association with the Falun Gong religion and its opposition to the Chinese Communist Party. However, starting in at least 2016, the paper became better known for its rabid support of Donald Trump and other Republican politicians — even going so far as to get themselves barred from buying ads on Facebook after spending over $2 million US on pro-Trump advertising from 2018-2019.
In addition to The Epoch Times and its weirdly over-advertised anti-communist dance troupe Shen Yun, Falun Gong is known for its opposition to homosexuality, modern medicine, feminism, and pop music, and its belief in the divinity of founder Li Hongzhi. According to a former Epoch Times journalist, practitioners also believe that Li Hongzhi is watching them at all times through “copies of himself that exist in a spiritual dimension,” that they can’t eat sashimi “because that would cause resentful living entities to build up in [their] stomachs,” that biracial children have no heaven to go to, and that Donald Trump is a literal angel from heaven.
US Attorney Damian Williams said, in a statement released Monday, that the “charges reflect this Office’s ongoing commitment to vigorously enforcing the laws against those who facilitate fraud through money laundering and to protecting the integrity of the U.S. financial system.”
If convicted, Guan faces up to 80 years in prison — 20 for the money laundering and 30 for each bank fraud charge.
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