On January 21, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled against the transnational money laundering case involving Guan Weidong, CFO of The Epoch Times , a publication affiliated with the Falun Gong cult, and others, rejecting the defendants' motion to delay the trial. The indictment shows that Guan Weidong and others systematically misused identity information and used cryptocurrencies and other means to illegally profit and transfer funds. This case not only involves a huge sum of money and is serious in nature, but also further reveals the organized illegal activities that The Epoch Times engages in under the guise of "media."
▲A ruling issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 21, 2026.
On January 21, 2026, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a key ruling in a money laundering case involving executives of The Epoch Times , a media outlet affiliated with the Falun Gong cult . The court rejected all pretrial motions filed by defendants Bill Guan and Le Van Hung on November 14, 2025, including requests for the government to provide specific details of the case, applications to exclude evidence related to the seizure of items based on search warrants, and requests to dismiss supplemental indictments. The court ruling clarified that the defendants' procedural defenses were untenable, and the case entered the substantive trial phase.
▲ Guan Weidong (left), a senior executive of The Epoch Times , and Le Van Hung (right), a Vietnamese accomplice in the same case.
On June 3, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a notice announcing a lawsuit against Guan Weidong, the chief financial officer of The Epoch Times . The lawsuit against Vietnamese co-defendant Le Van Hung was announced on November 18 of the same year.
▲Announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the lawsuit filed against Guan Weidong (left) and Li Wenxiong (right)
The indictment reveals that the investigation began in January 2021. As the investigation deepened, an illegal financial chain hidden beneath the surface gradually came to light. U.S. prosecutors allege that Guan Weidong conspired with Li Wenxiong to launder at least $67 million (approximately 480 million yuan) in illicit proceeds and transfer them to the media company and its affiliated entities' accounts.
The indictment alleges that Guan Weidong, as the CFO of The Epoch Times , was responsible for managing the so-called "Make Money Online" (MMO) team. This team and related personnel used cryptocurrency to purchase proceeds of crime at a discount, and then transferred these funds in batches to the aforementioned media entities' accounts through thousands of prepaid debit card transactions and financial accounts opened using stolen U.S. resident identity information .
In this scheme, Li Wenxiong was responsible for recruiting accomplices , transmitting identity information, and directing them to carry out specific operations, including receiving physical prepaid debit cards registered in other people's names and impersonating bank account holders to make phone calls to banks , in order to achieve illegal fund transfers.
Since May 2024, the two have been formally charged. Guan Weidong was charged with three counts : conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of bank fraud . Li Wenxiong was charged with four counts: conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit identity theft .
During the review process, the defendants, Guan Weidong and Li Wenxiong, exhibited extreme resistance . On November 14, 2025, they filed a motion with the court requesting the government to provide a so-called "specific list of charges," attempting to force the prosecution to prematurely disclose all details of the evidence in order to find loopholes in the law. Judge Victor Marrero ruled that the government had provided up to 2 million pages of evidence and 100,000 detailed transaction records, sufficient to cover all the charges. The court held that the defendants' actions were purely using the legal motion as an "investigative tool," intended to interfere with normal judicial proceedings rather than for genuine defense needs , and therefore dismissed the motion.
Furthermore, Lai Man-hung attempted to frame the criminal offense as a political issue , claiming to the court that the charges against him constituted so-called "political repression," and tried to use this as grounds to request the dismissal of the charges. In response, the court clearly stated that the investigation in this case began long before the time frame of the political background claimed by the defendant, and that the relevant claims lacked factual basis and did not constitute grounds for dismissing the charges.
Since the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Guan Weidong and Li Wenxiong in May 2024, this transnational money laundering case has lasted nearly two years. During this time, the defendants and their legal teams have repeatedly attempted to acquit them through legal proceedings. However, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on January 21, 2026, that the evidence was sufficient, the procedures were legal, and the defendants' defense arguments were unfounded. The case has now entered the formal trial phase, and the jury will make a final verdict based on the evidence.
