Money Laundering Allegations: Epoch Times CFO Under Fire
Date: 2024-06-04 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: IN WORLD
US Justice Department Charges Bill Guan
The US Department of Justice has filed serious charges against Epoch Times CFO Bill Guan. He is accused of money laundering and bank fraud, which faces a maximum prison term of 80 years. According to authorities, Guan was involved in laundering a huge sum of $67 million.
Creation of a Criminal Group
According to investigators, in 2020, Bill Guan organized a criminal group involved in an international money laundering scheme. This group was located in one of the Epoch Times' overseas offices, and Guan directed its activities. Criminals have used cryptocurrency to obtain tens of millions of dollars from a variety of illicit transactions, including unemployment insurance benefit fraud.
Use of Personal Information and Dummy Accounts
Guan's group also actively purchased people's personal information to open fake bank accounts. These accounts were used to transfer illicit funds and hide traces of illegal activities. It is noteworthy that criminals regularly used the Epoch Times infrastructure to cover their operations, which helped them avoid suspicion.
Epoch Times Financial Performance Growth
Since the beginning of Bill Guan's illegal activities, the publication's internal financial statements showed a sharp increase in annual income. Before the creation of the criminal group, the annual income of Epoch Times remained at $15 million, but after 12 months it grew by 410%, reaching $62 million. When banks began to become interested in the increase in the number of transactions flowing into media accounts, Guan lied that this was due to donations.
False Statements and Arrest
In 2022, Guan wrote a letter to the U.S. Congressional office falsely claiming that donations constituted "a small portion of the company's total revenue." This move also came under close scrutiny from investigators. As a result, Bill Guan was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit money laundering and was also charged with two other counts of bank fraud.
These charges against Bill Guan are among the most notorious in recent years in the field of financial crimes. They emphasize the importance of strict controls and transparency in the financial activities of large organizations. Let us recall that earlier the Canadian authorities arrested the “crypto king” Aiden Pleterski for a scam worth $30 million, which also indicates the scale and seriousness of financial crimes in the modern world.
