The Chief Financial Officer of the Epoch Times has been arrested and charged with laundering at least $67 million in funds.
Weidong "Bill" Guan was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York on one count of money laundering and two counts of bank fraud. He allegedly told a financial institution that the influx of funds, which boosted the outlet's revenue by nearly 400% in a year, came from donations.
Guan was arrested on Monday and entered a plea of not guilty. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years on the money laundering charge, and 30 years for each bank fraud charge. He remained in custody Monday evening facing a $3 million bail package, including a $250,000 cash deposit. Once released, he must remain in home detention.
Prosecutors allege Guan ran a "sprawling, transnational scheme" over a period of four years, in which he allegedly purchased prepaid debit cards on the internet at a discount using cryptocurrency. His is then alleged to have deposited the funds into both personal and corporate accounts. Some of the debit cards are said to have had fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits.
Of note...
The indictment makes clear that "The charges do not relate to the Media Company’s newsgathering activities."
And to that end, ZeroHedge stands with the dozens of highly skilled reporters working for Epoch, their editors, and their staff which have worked tirelessly for years to produce hard-hitting, accurate, insightful content. As regular readers know, we've been curating their best work for some time, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
For now, we will reserve comment on Guan's legal troubles until he's been afforded due process.
