不适合印刷 2024年6月3日更新
司法部称《大纪元时报》是史无前例的洗钱行动
马特-斯蒂布肖像
马特-斯蒂布（Matt Stieb），《知识分子报》撰稿人
《大纪元时报》是过去十年来媒体界最奇特的故事之一，这份曾经在纽约街头免费发行的报纸主要报道阴谋论、右翼观点和对中国共产党极度批评的报道。《大纪元时报》创办于 2000 年，实际上是法轮功的宣传机构，法轮功是总部位于纽约州北部的宗教运动，也是神韵演出的幕后推手，神韵演出是地铁广告中无法回避的反共节目。在特朗普执政期间，《大纪元时报》成功地扩大了其在YouTube和Facebook上的业务，向数百万美国人提供点击诱饵和错误信息。据司法部称，它还为其一名高管实施了大规模洗钱计划。
本周一，纽约联邦检察官指控大纪元时报首席财务官比尔-关（Bill Guan）犯有银行欺诈和共谋洗钱罪，涉嫌将至少 6700 万美元的非法所得资金转移到该媒体名下的银行账户。根据起诉书，Guan 负责一个名为 “网上赚钱”（Make Money Online）的团队（相当可疑），在该团队中，Guan 和下属 “使用加密货币在知情的情况下购买了数千万美元的犯罪所得”。被指控的计划相当简单，依靠预付借记卡，这是加密货币洗钱的常用方法。据称，总部设在国外的 “网上赚钱 ”团队会购买 “通过欺诈手段获得的失业保险金收益”，并将其装入预付卡。据称，该团队随后会以预付卡实际价值的 70% 至 80% 的价格将其换成加密货币。联邦调查局称，交易完成后，这些资金会被转入与《大纪元时报》相关的银行账户以及关的个人银行账户。
看来，“网上赚钱 ”团队名副其实。联邦调查局称，就在 Guan 涉嫌炮制洗钱计划的同时，《大纪元时报》的年收入猛增 410%，从 1500 万美元增至约 6200 万美元。大纪元时报》的银行家们自然有疑问，但 Guan 说，根据起诉书，这笔意外之财来自捐款。(不幸的是，他还在 2022 年写信给国会办公室，称捐款在《大纪元时报》的 “总体收入中微不足道”）。Guan 不认罪，检察官指出 “指控与媒体公司的新闻采集活动无关”。
UNFIT TO PRINT UPDATED JUNE 3, 2024
DOJ Says Epoch Times Newspaper Is an Epic Money-Laundering Operation
Portrait of Matt Stieb
By Matt Stieb, Intelligencer staff writer
One of the strangest stories in media over the past decade is the Epoch Times, a formerly free newspaper distributed on the streets of New York that focuses on conspiracist, right-wing takes and reports that are extremely critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Founded in 2000, it effectively functions as a propaganda wing of Falun Gong, the religious movement headquartered upstate that is also behind Shen Yun, the anti-communist show with the inescapable subway ads. During the Trump years, the Epoch Times successfully expanded its operation on YouTube and Facebook, reaching millions of Americans with clickbait and misinformation. According to the Justice Department, it also functioned as a massive money-laundering scheme for one of its executives.
On Monday, federal prosecutors in New York charged the Epoch Times’ chief financial officer, Bill Guan, with bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly moving at least $67 million in illegally obtained funds to bank accounts in the media outlet’s name. According to the indictment, Guan was in charge of something (rather suspiciously) called the “Make Money Online” team, in which Guan and underlings “used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds.” The alleged scheme was fairly simple, relying on prepaid debit cards, which are a common method in crypto laundering. The Make Money Online team, based abroad, would allegedly purchase “proceeds of fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits” loaded onto prepaid cards. The team then allegedly traded them for cryptocurrency at 70 to 80 percent of the cards’ actual value. After making the deal, the Feds claim that those funds would then be transferred into bank accounts associated with the Epoch Times as well as into Guan’s personal bank accounts.
It appears that the Make Money Online team lived up to its name. The Feds say that at the same time that Guan allegedly concocted the money-laundering scheme, the Epoch Times’ annual revenue shot up 410 percent, from $15 million to around $62 million. Its bankers naturally had questions, but Guan said that the windfall came from donations, per the indictment. (Unfortunately for him, he also wrote to a congressional office in 2022, stating that donations are “an insignificant portion of the overall revenue” of the Epoch Times.) Guan has entered a not guilty plea, and prosecutors note that the “charges do not relate to the Media Company’s newsgathering activities.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/inside-bill-guans-alleged-laundering-at-the-epoch-times.html
陳旭@perth 