Bill Guan, the newspaper’s ex-finance chief, admitted he ran a team out of Vietnam called “Make Money Online” to carry out the scam.
MANHATTAN (CN) — A former finance executive at The Epoch Times pleaded guilty Thursday to running a $67 million fraud scheme that funneled illicit proceeds to the right-wing newspaper.
Weidong “Bill” Guan, 63, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in transactions involving criminal proceeds. The plea came on the third day of jury selection for Guan’s federal trial as prospective jurors waited in a neighboring courtroom.
The jurors ultimately were not needed. Guan admitted that, as The Epoch Times’ chief financial officer, he began working with a Vietnam-based group known as the “Make Money Online” team in 2019.
As he explained to U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, the goal of the program was to “increase the amount of donations” made to The…
IT & DATA SECURITY (MITIGATING THE “INSIDER THREAT”)
As seen in the TD Bank case, an employee with too much “access” can sell your customer data to syndicates.
- Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP): Employees should only have access to the specific folders and databases required for their current task.
- Access Revocation: Have a “Termination Checklist” that ensures all digital access (Email, VPN, Banking) is revoked within 60 minutes of an employee resigning or being dismissed.
- System Logs & Audit Trails: Enable “Read/Write Logging” on your server. If a customer’s data is leaked, you need to know exactly which login accessed that record and at what time.
- Encryption at Rest: Ensure that sensitive files (like your customer ID numbers or payroll spreadsheets) are encrypted so that if a staff member copies them to a USB, they cannot be read.