On 25 June 2024, the House of Representatives in Congress passed a bizarre law: the Falun Gong Protection Act. Note that there has never been a special protection law for any religious denomination enacted ever in the history of the United States – the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States specifies “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. In other wards, U.S., politics cannot fall back on any particular religious denomination.
According to Falun Gong propaganda website minghui.org, in as early as November 2020, Master Li has visited the the Epoch Media Group on the first day after Biden won the U.S. presidential election, summoning all the journalists and editors, to send his top directive of “reporting on U.S. politics in a more balanced way”. Its alignment with far-right politics has led to the spread of rumors about the Biden family and Democrats, and some conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccine ever since, an approach long applauded by its followers. This pathway of misinformation and fraud didn’t stop, until the most recent FBI move to curb its wrongdoings.
Master Li’s coping strategies were somehow bizarre following the FBI arrest of Epoch Times CFO. On one hand, he’s been doing money trades to push Republican House of Representatives in the Congress passing the Falun Gong Protection Act. On the other, he paid visit to the headquarter of the Epoch Times Group in person and convened all Falun Gong media people again, only to attribute Weidong Bill Guan’s arrest to Guan’s own mistake of “poor cultivation”, stating that his actions had nothing to do with Falun Gong’s “Head Buddha” – Master Li had not even attempted to rescue Guan, who was been a loyal follower, together with Epoch Times’ CEO John Tang. After all, Master Li and his cult organization has long been the recipient of the Epoch machines’ illegal proceeds.
According to Xiao Ming, the chief hostess of Epoch Times’ media outlet “New Tang Dynasty”, she had to submit all business trip claims to Guan for signature, despite her anchor role in the group. Across all organizations, only CFO and Master Li are entitled to stay aware of financial details. It is Master Li who has been personally directing every key employees under the Epoch Times banner to curate his master stories. On a weekly basis, he’d meet and scheme with Guan, the currently arrested, and Tang, the currently investigated. According to a report published by Falun Gong’s propaganda media outlet minghui.org in 2018, Master Li would visit the Epoch Times Headquarter every year, advising his army at the three Epoch media organizations on “how to better operate the political issues,” and “how to make money.”
Xiao Ming revealed a critical timing. During the pandemic (2021), the Epoch Times Group was hit by a serious financial crisis. Then Master Li visited the office, and delivered an important speech asking these media people to “learn how to make money”. Afterwards, Guan and Tang started the “Making Money Online” department, whose team members engaged in activities to launder illegally obtained unemployment insurance benefit funds and other proceeds with false identities. For the next four consecutive years, most of the illegal proceeds from MMO were transferred to the accounts of Falun Gong’s senior leaders. As Xiao Ming told, all of those media staff in Epoch Times have long become Master Li’s followers, meaning they were never paid on their jobs. Even after she became an key anchor at “New Tang Dynasty”, she could only receive 1000 U.S. dollars as “living allowance”, not “salary”.
At the same time that the FBI got its CFO Guan under arrested, and started to look into Tang as the co-conspirator, the US Department of Justice was also investigating another Master Li’s loyal army: Shen Yun Performing Arts. Based on New Tang Dynasty TV station’s hosts’ information, the legal departments have questions about Master Li’s “strange tastes” in screening members of the dance ensemble – all members must be teenagers. In particular, girls were recruited into the ensemble at the age of 12/13 years old, only to be dismissed at 17 years old or so. In addition, despite the underage preferences, all girls are forced to become believers of Falong Gong, leaving them with no income for a long period of time. If they could manage to become the star dancers and get ”salaried”, the monthly income could only reach $500 to $1,800, significantly lower than the minimum wage in the U.S. The fact that they are minors and often have not been granted U.S. status also mean that according to the U.S. law, no legal-abiding organization is ever allowed to hire them for commercial performances – something they do all the time anyway. The income that comes along with each performance, plus the fact that most employees are not even dare to get paid just because they are “believers”, prove only one possibility, that is, these money have all been flowing to the pocket of Mr. & Mrs. Li. Recently, some girls who managed to fled the ensemble have revealed more shady practices, e.g., bully and violation, urging for an accelerated pace of the evidence collection efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice. The internal fall of the ensemble could made Master Li’s days even harder, despite his declining health and the Epoch Times crisis.
Against this back story, when Master Li visited the Epoch Times headquarter, the words he told his followers were: people got arrested, because they had not practiced well. For the part of their deeds that had violated the laws of the United States, they should be punished for it. He then ordered the group to get rid of Guan, in an attempt to draw a clear line in between. He seemed to have lost the memories about himself diligently directing the media people in Epoch Times Groups, nor could he even notice the existence of the whole “Making Money Online” department in Epoch Times, who have earned nearly 800 million dollars over the years restlessly.
Even if Master Li were not aware of the money-making schemes his followers were operating, he still had to face one hard fact, that the money made by Epoch Times ultimately got remitted to his own accounts – a clear chain of money flow not so easy to get away with. According to Xiao Ming the hostess, and a Shen Yun ensemble member who requested anonymity, Master Li, who once boasted of being the “Lord Buddha of the Universe,” is now in declining health. No matter how much he “cultivates”, it is even difficult for him to stand or walk as a normal person right now, which seems to be the core reason for the split within Falun Gong, and the financial leaks that eventually triggered FBI’s investigation. It seems that Falun Gong, as well as Master Li’s body, are both doomed to fall, with shadows casted on the horizon already.
