Weidong Guan

Indictment alleges sprawling, transnational money-laundering scheme from approx 2020 through May 2024 laundering at least $67 million. Guan managed the Epoch Times 'Make Money Online' (MMO) team in a foreign office, which used Cryptocurrency Platform-1 to buy prepaid debit cards loaded with crime proceeds (incl. fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits) at 70-80 cents on the dollar in exchange for cryptocurrency, then transferred proceeds via layered transactions to bank accounts of the Media Entities. From April 2020 through January 2021, seven Media Entities accounts made approx 85 transfers totaling $16.7 million to one of Guan's personal bank accounts; Guan then moved $5.7M to Cryptocurrency Platform-2 and $10.9M to Cryptocurrency Platform-3 accounts. Guan did not report the income on his 2020 or 2021 tax filings.

Co-defendant Bill (Weidong) Guan is represented by Petrillo Klein & Boxer (Guy Petrillo, Kevin Puvalowski, Marcelo Triana) — a top-tier white-collar defense boutique founded by former SDNY Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force chief Guy Petrillo. PKB retainers for senior partners typically exceed $1500/hour. As CFO of Epoch Times Association Inc and Treasurer of Epoch Public Foundation, Guan's representation is almost certainly funded via Epoch Times indemnification and/or D&O policy. This establishes that Epoch Times has both the willingness and the resources to fund elite defense for indicted insiders.

Officer-overlap establishes Guan as TWO-HAT Epoch insider: (a) CFO of The Epoch Times Association Inc (the news/media nonprofit, EIN 22-3848589), and (b) Treasurer of the Epoch Public Foundation board. Co-officers of Epoch Public Foundation board: John Tang (President — co-founder Epoch Times, resigned all roles 6/7/2024 five days after Guan arrest); Shaoling Huang (Secretary — also media director at Epoch Media Group). Janice Trey appointed interim CEO of The Epoch Times effective 7/1/2024 to replace Tang. This board structure means the Foundation's funds are inherently controlled by the same officer cohort that ran the indicted-financial-scheme operation, and the Foundation's grants to ETA / UCN / Shen Yun establish the funding-channel architecture for any indemnification or legal-defense disbursement. The hasty Tang resignation post-arrest is consistent with corporate effort to insulate Foundation from indictment optics — but does NOT preclude continued legal-defense funding through Foundation reserves.

Weidong 'Bill' Guan, CFO of The Epoch Times, indicted SDNY 1:24-cr-00322 on three counts: (1) Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering (18 USC 1956(h), with substantive 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and 1957(a) objects); (2,3) Bank Fraud (18 USC 1344(2)). Specified unlawful activity for the laundering object is wire fraud (18 USC 1343). Indictment filed under seal 5/23/2024, unsealed 6/3/2024, arrest 6/2/2024.

Indictment alleges Guan made false statements to U.S. banks (Bank-1, Bank-2) characterizing the inflows as 'donations,' 'profit donations' from the foreign office, or 'subscriptions.' In a January 2022 letter to a congressional office, Guan represented that 'subscriptions constitute the major portion of [the Media Company's] revenue,' and that '[c]haritable donations' were 'an insignificant portion.' The indictment alleges these were knowingly false and that the Money Laundering Scheme drove the Media Company's revenue jump from approx $15M in 2019 to approx $62M in 2020 (a 410% increase).

Weidong Bill Guan = CFO of The Epoch Times Association Inc (EIN 22-3848589) per 990; same individual indicted in SDNY 1:24-cr-00322 for $67M money laundering conspiracy

990 officer record: Weidong Guan CFO $81,923 [DIR,OFF] for tax year 2023; $85,200 in 2022 and 2021 as Bill Guan. DOJ press release identifies the indicted individual as the Chief Financial Officer of multinational media company. Officer overlap is direct: Guan is unambiguously a 990-disclosed senior officer of ETAI and the indicted defendant. Le Van Hung is a 29yo Vietnamese national co-defendant under separate indictment (Make Money Online team operative); Hung is NOT a 990-disclosed officer of ETAI.