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Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
- a2tech 2y agoWow. I wonder what they were buying? It’s not spelled out in the article I didn’t realize they were affiliated with Falun Gong. The only reason I even know this company existed is their billboards started popping up on the highway recently.
- bredren 2y agoFrom the indictment: > For example, certain of the prepaid debit cards were loaded with fraudulently procured unemployment insurance benefits obtained using stolen personal identification information of U.S. residents. > The crime proceeds were sold on Cryptocurrency Platform-1 to affiliates of the Media Company's Foreign Office at discounted rates of approximately 70 to 80 cents per dollar and in exchange for cryptocurrency.
- LeoPanthera 2y agoWe used to occasionally get Epoch Times issues stuffed into our mailbox. (Illegally, I understand, since they were not delivered by the USPS.) They were full of the most disgusting bigoted hateful rhetoric. It actually made me feel quite uncomfortable, thinking about who was writing and distributing it. "Shen Yun", a show that also has billboard ads all over the bay area, is also a Falun Gong operation, just like Epoch.
- manuelabeledo 2y ago> They were full of the most disgusting bigoted hateful rhetoric. It actually made me feel quite uncomfortable, thinking about who was writing and distributing it. It's really weird that the people behind Epoch, are the same that one can find peacefully protesting in many major cities against the treatment they receive in China. I have to say, their behaviour in recent years made me rethink their claims about illegal organ harvesting. I know both things, they being a hateful cult and being oppressed and killed by the Chinese regime, can be true, but their alignment with far right groups and conspiracy theorists is hard to overlook.
- czl 2y agoSee "This Chinese Cult is Not Your Friend - the Falun Gong story" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JaPzJKycxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JaPzJKycxc
- cubefox 2y agoDuring early COVID, they also reported that, based on calls to overloaded crematoriums under false name, the number of COVID deaths was much higher than given in the official figures. Those official figures were eventually corrected upwards, confirming the Epoch times reports.
- AndyMcConachie 2y agohttps://www.jstor.org/stable/27212328 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27212328 Falun Gong and Epoch Times receive funding from Congress via the National Endowment for Democracy. I guess the USA promotes them since they're a thorn in the side of China. And yeah, they get up to some weird stuff. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986982387/falun-gong-steve-bannon-and-the-trump-era-battle-over-internet-freedom https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986982387/falun-gong-steve-ba...
- pycoffee 2y ago[dead]
- bakuninsbart 2y agoOrgan harvesting in Chinese prisons is a real thing that happened (state even acknowledged it), but to what extent and until when is unclear. The probably most comprehensive write-up on the issue is by the China Tribunal, but I wouldn't take their words ar face value, since all the authors are falun gong associated or have a vested interest in making China look bad. If you're interested in the topic, read the report, it contains a lot of circumstantial evidence and conjectures. Nothing that would hold up in a court of law, but imo. At least raises a number of questions surrounding Chinese claims on the issue. The Falun Gong claim that their organs were targeted because they are "purer" sounds like straight up bullshit to me. Horrible as they may be, the CCP is very materialistic and doesn't put much stake in spiritual bullshit. Falun Gong itself was both a cult and a spiritual movement, with at its peak close to 100 million practitioners in China. Since the harsh crackdown in the 90s, mostly the cult side is left, and they are dangerous loonies.
- carlosjobim 2y ago> They were full of the most disgusting bigoted hateful rhetoric. Such as? Excuse for doubting, but people - especially people on this board - tend to use those kind of words and accusations whenever there's somebody that has a different opinion on some issue. I've only seen stuff published by Epoch Times occasionally and those times they've had a much tamer profile than what you're describing.
- nirui 2y agoBias alert first, I'm your genuine Chinese, and I don't really like Falun Gong. Maybe they are full of rhetoric, but their propaganda is effective, to the point which you can predict people's narrative based on the recent publications from The Epoch Times, though it mainly effects under-educated Chinese-speaking families who can't consume more established English newspaper/media. Being a far-right (See the description on Wikipedia [1]) media, they mirrors the narrative of other English far-right medias, and they forwards those narratives to Chinese-reading consumers. I guess that's their business model. Also, "Shen Yun" is not Chinese culture, rather the Chinese culture in "Shen Yun" was used as props to add a dose of eastern mystery to attract western audience. Very nice marketing I might add. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times
- manuelabeledo 2y ago> I didn’t realize they were affiliated with Falun Gong. The only reason I even know this company existed is their billboards started popping up on the highway recently. Their media arm is quite ubiquitous in Asia. They also run Shen Yun [0], whose pamphlets you may have seen around from time to time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Yun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Yun
- AndyMcConachie 2y agoFor those who don't know, Epoch Times is the media outlet of Falun Gong.
- dgellow 2y agoIt’s mentioned in the article
- dragonelite 2y agoWho would have though that importing a crazy ass cult wouldn't result in shady businesses starting to happen around such a cult.
- bredren 2y agoThe indictment: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1354021/dl https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1354021/dl
- koolba 2y ago> The plot, prosecutors said, was simple: members of the Make Money Online (MMO) team would purchase crime proceeds via cryptocurrency at a discount and transfer those proceeds into bank accounts held by entities affiliated with newspaper. > The illegal proceeds would ultimately be moved back into the Epoch Times accounts through "tens of thousands of layered transactions", including through prepaid debit cards and financial accounts opened using stolen identification information. What are “crime proceeds”? Are these seized assets by the Feds sold at a discount? Or stolen assets by criminals (also sold at a discount)? Either way, sounds like classic money laundering as the follow up.
- caf 2y agoIt would be the latter, because "transfer those proceeds into bank accounts" implies currency, rather than other types of assets.
- perihelions 2y agoThe indictment says very little about the underlying crime schemes. (I understand indictments usually don't say and don't need to say very much). - "The prepaid debit cards were issued by different debit card companies and loaded with U.S. dollars that had been unlawfully obtained through various frauds (i.e. , the crime proceeds). For example, certain of the prepaid debit cards were loaded with fraudulently procured unemployment insurance benefits obtained using stolen personal identification information of U.S. residents." (page 4)
- eli 2y agoThat seems clear to me. They used stolen identity information to make false unemployment insurance claims in other people’s names. The CFO bought the prepaid cards at a discount and then transferred the whole amount to the company account. Maybe there’s more to it but it doesn’t sound like it was very sophisticated and seems inevitable they would be caught eventually.
- 0110101001 2y ago> They used stolen identity information to make false unemployment insurance claims in other people’s names. I don't think "they," meaning Epoch Times, did the actual identity theft / unemployment insurance fraud. The indictment says they "purchased" the debit cards, and there are no charges related to those crimes. It sounds like Epoch Times found a platform where such fraudsters were offloading their phony unemployment debit cards at a discount (this started in 2020, when I presume there was a huge boom in unemployment fraud) and tried to flip them around as legitimate donations and subscription revenue for an easy profit.
- frank_bb 2y ago[dead]
- goodmunky 2y ago[flagged]
- arijun 2y agoNot sure I follow your logic…
- immibis 2y agothe logic is: "everything I don't like (gay people etc) is communism"
- logicchains 2y agoThat's very uncharitable. The Epoch Times is explicitly anti-CCP; anti Chinese communist party.
- logicchains 2y agoTheir logic is that the US government behaves like a communist regime, doing whatever it can to punish and silence real dissent (like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange), so they assumed it might just be using this as an excuse to punish a newspaper that often hosts anti-US-government content.
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- wslh 2y agoIt would be great if the article gives more information about the scheme. EDIT: great that breden has added the actual case. Crypto just sounds a a little clickbait because fraud is fraud no matters the means except if crypto has something different in this case. I think it is more interesting that the Epoch Times was a beneficiary from this scheme so I don't see as a normal case where the CFO enrich himself. In almost all frauds, specially in crypto, the enriched party is an individual, group, or another company that use their position against a company or community for himself. For example, FTX and Three Arrows Capital [1]. BTW, I am the plaintiff in an ongoing crypto lawsuit [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Arrows_Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Arrows_Capital [2] https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/coinfabrik-sues-borderless-capital-rand-labs-david-garcia-pablo-yabo-among-others/ https://www.coinfabrik.com/blog/coinfabrik-sues-borderless-c...
- MELEKE 2y ago[dead]
- infotainment 2y agoI continue to be convinced that the only valid use cases for crypto are scams and money laundering -- chalk up this one to the latter. Can anyone name an application besides those two things that traditional finance doesn't handle better?
- logicchains 2y ago>Can anyone name an application besides those two things that traditional finance doesn't handle better? Buying drugs is an obvious thing that crypto's much better for. Similarly sending money to people in countries the US government doesn't like.
- smoothbenny 2y agoThe former seems much riskier to transact in crypto vs. buying locally in cash from a known entity
- indy 2y ago1. Sending money to dangerous people like Julian Assange. 2. Sending money to relatives in the third world 3. Keeping your savings when the currency of your nation is going through hyperinflation
- 0dayz 2y agoPoint 3 is bad advice, historically it's been the Swiss franks that is the gold standard for saving up in case of hyperinflation.
- joshstrange 2y agoI knew that newspaper name tickled something in the back of my head. > It was started by Chinese-Americans affiliated with a religious group called Falun Gong. Ahh yes, “religious group” aka cult, and that’s why no one in the company looked twice at the 400%+ increase in revenue.
- yieldcrv 2y agopurchasing crime proceeds at a discount? curious if anyone here is familiar with this method, and why they failed at reintegration
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