Chinese cyberactors have claimed that they impersonated The Epoch Times to send threatening emails to multiple federal agencies and the White House.
The attackers notified The Epoch Times of their threats in a Chinese-language email dated Sept. 6 with the subject line “See the screenshots, you are done.”
Three screenshots of the threats were attached to the email; one showed the “Contact Us” form on the White House website, with The Epoch Times’ phone number and email filled in. In a comment littered with exclamation marks, the sender claimed to represent practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual community persecuted in China, and threatened violence against the White House.
“We will throw incendiary bombs and explosives! If anyone tries to stop us, we will open fire!” the message states. It then threatened to “simultaneously broadcast this magnificent feat live” on a variety of platforms, including YouTube, The Epoch Times, and its sister media outlet, NTD.
The message claimed that the acts were to be in retaliation for “your failure to help us address the Communist Party’s transnational repression.”
Similar fake threats were allegedly sent to the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
The impersonator used an Epoch Times email address as the contact email in each of the threatening messages.
“What can you do with me?” the sender wrote in Chinese, claiming to be based in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province in central China.
Newspaper of the Hong Kong edition of The Epoch Times is on display at newsstands in Hong Kong on Sept. 17, 2024. Kiri Choy/The Epoch Times
The Epoch Times was founded by practitioners of Falun Gong in 2000 in Atlanta, with the goal of providing truthful and accurate news out of heavily censored China. The newspaper has focused on reporting on human rights abuses in China, including the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s eradication campaign against Falun Gong, a spiritual practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
Huang Wanqing, editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language Epoch Times, said the impersonators’ emails align closely with intimidation tactics employed by agents of the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies.
“We condemn the perpetrator for trying to create terror,” Huang said in a statement.
A Broader CCP Campaign
The threatening emails appear to fit into a broader campaign by China’s communist regime.
In 2024, a political insider revealed a directive issued in 2022 by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to suppress Falun Gong globally. The campaign’s key targets were Falun Gong-founded companies. Xi expressed particular frustration with international media organizations, which he said had become the main “hostile force” against the regime in the English-speaking world.
Not long after Xi’s instruction, two Chinese agents initiated a scheme to bribe the IRS to open an investigation into Shen Yun Performing Arts, a company founded by Falun Gong practitioners. The plan ultimately failed, and the men were prosecuted and received prison time.
Shen Yun, which aims to showcase “China before communism,” has also received a large volume of harassing emails from suspected Chinese agents. While the arts group is on tour, the intimidators demand that theaters cancel its performances, threatening violent acts such as shootings and bombings if the venues don’t comply. One threatening email in February forced the Kennedy Center in Washington to evacuate hours before Shen Yun’s premiere, leading to condemnation from the White House.
Over the past year, the Falun Dafa Information Center has documented more than 130 cases of threats made against Shen Yun and Falun Gong. Many have involved fake bomb threats, as well as threats of mass shootings. Some of the threats focused on Shen Yun performers and their training facilities, while others have even targeted U.S. lawmakers who have voiced support for Falun Gong. None of the threats have materialized.
In January, the Falun Dafa Information Center warned of a rise in “malicious impersonations of Falun Gong practitioners,” both on social media and in emails sent to public venues and elected officials. Journalists, law enforcement, and others should exercise caution if they see “strange, violent, or suspicious messages” purporting to be from Falun Gong practitioners or Shen Yun-affiliated individuals, the Center said.
The Center’s executive director, Levi Browde, expressed his concerns that “the regime or its proxies may be plotting a more serious incident, even a violent one, using fake Falun Gong practitioners.” Browde said the likely goal is to “accelerate current tactics to discredit the practice and turn public opinion in the United States and globally against Falun Gong.”
“These are blatant and audacious attempts by Beijing or their proxies to depict practitioners as extreme or irrational. The fact that they would stoop this low in their attempts to malign our faith in the West shows perhaps just how desperate they are,” Browde told The Epoch Times in a statement on Sept. 11.
In a previous investigation of similar incidents targeting legislators in Taiwan, local authorities determined that the threatening messages had originated in China, using virtual private network services to mask their real location.
The Taiwanese Criminal Investigation Bureau said that its multiagency investigation has traced the emails back to Xi’an.
