- Weidong “Bill” Guan, the chief financial officer of The Epoch Times, has been accused of laundering $67 million in criminal proceeds to the media organization, its affiliates and himself.
- Guan has pleaded innocent but has been suspended by the media company.
- Epoch Times, founded in 2000, is a newspaper available in 23 languages.
The arrest of an executive at The Epoch Times this week in a money-laundering scheme has drawn attention to a media outlet that has remained in the shadows since its founding in 2000 and underwent significant changes in 2009. Trump Administration,
Federal prosecutors in New York accused Weidong “Bill” Guan of Secaucus, N.J., the chief financial officer of The Epoch Times, of laundering at least $67 million in criminal proceeds, derived from fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, to the company, his associates and himself. Guan pleaded not guilty but was suspended by The Epoch Times, which agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
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The case calls into question the future of a company that was a major online supporter of Trump and a purveyor of conspiracy theories.
What is the era period?
What first started as a newspaper, the company produces news websites and videos and is now available in 23 languages. Its founder, John Tang, is a Chinese-American who practices Falun Gong, a form of meditation and exercise. The Chinese government has condemned, banned and, according to members, routinely persecuted and abused followers of Falun Gong.
Plastic newspaper racks for The Epoch Times, The Village Voice and other newspapers stand on a Manhattan sidewalk in New York on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013. The arrest of an executive at The Epoch Times in a money-laundering scheme this week has drawn attention to a media outlet that has largely remained in the shadows between its founding in 2000 and the transformation during the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Although the outlet has tried to distance its operations from the Falun Gong movement, the company has stated that it “takes the Falun Gong movement in a different direction.” the Chinese Communist Party The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, and the remarkably heroic way in which practitioners have responded to the persecution, has been one of the most underreported stories of the past 20 years.”
It is by no means a one-issue news organization, and the main story on its website on Wednesday was about the US political primaries the previous night. But The Epoch Times reports consistently and toughly on the Chinese government; stories on its website on Wednesday included an opinion piece on the origins of the Covid virus and a look at the Tiananmen Square massacre on its 35th anniversary. The site also prominently promoted a book by Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi.
The Epoch Times states that “Our aim is not to impose our viewpoint on you, but to give you the information you need to make your own decision.”
How did the era’s time change?
The Epoch Times website currently features testimonials from the most senior members of the Trump administration, Peter Navarro and Sebastian Gorka, and Paul Gosar, a Republican US representative from Arizona.
That’s a sign. The news organization transformed itself during the Trump years and became a site that supported the former president and his objectives. It was opportunistic in two ways: Leaders saw in Trump a president they believed would fight against the Chinese government, and sensed a chance to win funding from people who believed in that cause, said AJ Bauer, a professor at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media.
Over the years, the outlet became a partisan powerhouse and “also created a global-scale misinformation machine that has repeatedly pushed marginalized narratives into the mainstream,” The New York Times reported in 2020.
This fueled a variety of conspiracy theories, many of them linked to Covid. The Epoch Times and its affiliates pushed the false story that Obama Administration Spied on Trump’s 2016 campaign and spread theories and voter fraud claims promoted by the QAnon conspiracy site.
The Epoch Times was particularly aggressive by placing ads on Facebook and creating separate pages that directed social media users to its content. Following an NBC News investigation, the social media giant banned pro-Trump ads produced by the outlet in 2019 for violating its advertising policies.
The indictment doesn’t explicitly say that these pro-Trump efforts were funded through the alleged criminal scheme. But it was around this time that the money started rolling in. According to federal financial disclosures, the Epoch Times reported revenue of nearly $128 million for 2021, a stunning increase from $4 million in 2016. This shift drew the attention of banks, regulators, and eventually, federal prosecutors.
According to the federal indictment, most of the money came through the company’s “Make Money Online” team, run by Guan. The indictment states that Guan claimed this windfall was due in part to an increase in memberships and donations.
What does this mean for the future of the era?
Guan is the only person prosecutors have charged. But the indictment says “other known and unknown” people were aware of what was going on, raising questions about whether anyone else at the company might be involved and what impact it might have on The Epoch Times’ future. The company did not immediately respond to a query about the matter.
Given the action Facebook took against the company in 2019, it is questionable whether the tactics used previously are relevant to a 2024 campaign. Bauer said some avenues to reach people have undoubtedly been closed as the social media site places less emphasis on news and political content.
Conservatives have certainly noticed the work The Epoch Times has done for their issues. Despite that, the outlet has had surprisingly little impact, said Howard Polskin, who tracks conservative media for the Right Right website.
“They don’t seem to be driving the news agenda in the right-wing media,” Polskin said. “I don’t think the right-wing media is paying much attention to what they’re doing.”
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Bauer agreed. He said the Epoch Times’ influence is limited mainly to those for whom opposing the Chinese government is their main reason for living.
“They’re having a hard time finding an audience right now, just like everybody else in the media,” Bauer said. “I don’t think a lot of people are sitting on their computer with their morning coffee and calling up The Epoch Times to try to find out what they have to say.”
