“Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Jonathan Mellone, the Special Agent in Charge of the Northeast Region of the US Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (‘DOL-OIG’); and Andrew Wroblewski, the Assistant Director of the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (‘DSS’) Domestic Operations, announced the unsealing of an Indictment charging WEIDONG GUAN, a/k/a ‘Bill Guan,’ the Chief Financial Officer of a multinational media company headquartered in New York City with participating in a transnational scheme to launder at least approximately $67 million of illegally obtained funds to benefit himself and the media company. GUAN was arrested yesterday morning and will be presented this afternoon before US Magistrate Judge Stewart D Aaron. The case has been assigned to US District Judge Victor Marrero,” says a Justice Department/Southern District of New York press release.

Continued: “From at least in or about 2020, through in or about May 2024, GUAN, while working as the Chief Financial Officer of a multinational media company headquartered in New York, New York (the ‘Media Company’), conspired with others to participate in a sprawling, transnational scheme to launder at least approximately $67 million of illegally obtained funds to bank accounts in the names of the Media Company and related entities (together, with the Media Company, the ‘Media Entities’).”

“In furtherance of the money laundering conspiracy, GUAN managed, among other teams, the Media Company’s ‘Make Money Online’ team (the ‘MMO Team’), which was located in a particular foreign office of the Media Company. Under GUAN’s management, members of the MMO Team and others used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds, including proceeds of fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, that had been loaded onto tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards. The crime proceeds were generally purchased by the scheme participants, including members of the MMO Team and others working with them, using a particular cryptocurrency platform, at discounted rates of approximately 70 to 80 cents per dollar, and in exchange for cryptocurrency. Once the crime proceeds were purchased, the MMO Team and other participants in the scheme used stolen personal identification information to open accounts, including prepaid debit card accounts, cryptocurrency accounts, and bank accounts, that were used to transfer the crime proceeds into bank accounts associated with the Media Entities. After the crime proceeds reached those bank accounts, they were often further laundered through other bank accounts held by the Media Entities, GUAN’s personal bank accounts, and through GUAN’s personal cryptocurrency accounts,” and the press release goes on for quite a bit but you get the gist.

What isn’t in there is the name of the company: The Epoch Times, the far right Chinese “dissident” media outlet that is hardcore pro-MAGA and ubiquitous as all hell with their bullshit.