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> 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.

[ajross]

> It sounds like Epoch Times found a platform where such fraudsters were offloading their phony unemployment debit cards at a discount [...] and tried to flip them around as legitimate donations and subscription revenue for an easy profit.

Just to be clear, since the framing here doesn't make it clear if you understand: that is textbook money laundering. "I didn't know where the money on these cards came from I was just buying them as a product" is not remotely a defense. AML/KYC laws apply to all financial transactions, not just to banks, and yes, "buying millions of dollars of pre-paid debit cards for real money" is quite clealy a "financial" transaction.