Federal prosecutors this week arrested the chief financial officer of The Epoch Times and said he directed millions of dollars gained through criminal schemes to the company and himself.
FILE - Plastic newspaper racks for The Epoch Times, The Village Voice and other newspapers stand along a Manhattan sidewalk, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013 in New York. 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 lived in the shadows between its founding in 2000 and a transformation during the Trump administration.
In a few years' time, the outlet became a partisan powerhouse and “has also created a global-scale misinformation machine that has repeatedly pushed fringe narratives into the mainstream,” The New York Times, many surrounding COVID. The Epoch Times and affiliates advanced the false story that the Obama administration spied on Trump's 2016 campaign and spread theories promoted by the QAnon conspiracy site and claims about voter fraud.
Much of the money came in through the company's “Make Money Online” team, run by Guan, according to the federal indictment. Guan has claimed the windfall was due in part to an increase in subscriptions and donations, the indictment said.Guan is the only one charged by prosecutors.
Conservative figures certainly noticed the work put in by The Epoch Times on behalf of their causes. Despite that, the outlet has had surprisingly little influence, said Howard Polskin, who monitors conservative media for The Righting website.
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