… that’s nobody’s been talking about
This has got to be one of the major reasons the Republicans are panicking over the Epstein files:
JP Morgan warned the US government about more than $1bn in transactions linked to Jeffrey Epstein that were possibly related to reports of human trafficking, new documents confirm.
The largest bank in the US filed a suspicious activity report (SAR) in 2019, just weeks after Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell, about transactions linked to the paedophile financier and prominent business figures. It also flagged wire transfers made by Epstein to Russian banks.
JP Morgan’s report said it had flagged about 4,700 transactions, totalling more than $1bn, that were potentially related to reports of human trafficking involving Epstein, the New York Times reported. The report, filed during the last Trump administration, also flagged sensitivities around Epstein’s “relationships with two U.S. presidents”.
The report was included in a release of previously sealed court records that were made public on Thursday after requests from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The documents included other SARs that JPMorgan filed in the years before Epstein’s 2019 arrest about large cash withdrawals, the New York Times reported.
The 2019 report did not detail the nature of the transactions or why they were suspicious. But it identified transactions with Leon Black, the co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management who left the company in 2021; the hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin; the lawyer Alan Dershowitz; and trusts controlled by the retail tycoon Leslie Wexner.
The report identified $65m of wire transfers from the mid-2000s that appeared to move between multiple banks linked to Wexner’s trusts but it did not provide details about the transactions involving Black, Dubin or Dershowitz.
None of the individuals named in the report have been charged with crimes in relation to Epstein.
Here’s Jason Leopold of Bloomberg with more:
The money laundering probe adds a new layer to the narrative about how the government conducted its investigation into the notorious sex abuser. It also raises questions about what evidence prosecutors may have gathered, long before the public began demanding a full accounting of his case. If that investigation had continued, prosecutors may have been able to identify other individuals and institutions that facilitated his sex-trafficking operation, said Stefan Cassella, the former deputy chief of the Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. They might also have recovered more restitution for his victims, Casella said.
The money laundering investigation was opened in February 2007, according to a former law enforcement official familiar with the case who requested anonymity because of the sensitivities surrounding Epstein. At around the same time, prosecutors focused on a pattern of transactions in which Epstein directed some of his employees to withdraw large amounts of cash to disburse to women around the world he was suspected of having victimized. That was used as the basis for a potential charge of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, the former law enforcement official said.
The lead prosecutor on the case, former Assistant US Attorney Marie Villafaña, requested that a grand jury issue subpoenas for “every financial transaction conducted by Epstein and his six businesses” dating to 2003, the emails show. Target letters were sent to three of his assistants alerting them that Epstein was under investigation for money laundering and other financial crimes. Villafaña also dispatched two agents to the houses of two secretaries.
The previously undisclosed details about the existence of a money laundering investigation puts a spotlight on Alex Acosta, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida who signed off on Epstein’s controversial non-prosecution agreement.
Last month, Acosta was interviewed by lawmakers from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the Epstein case. He was peppered with questions by Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury about whether his office investigated Epstein for “potential financial crimes.” Acosta said, “I don’t recall a financial aspect,” according to a transcript of his interview the committee released this month. “We were focused on the inappropriate acts that took place in Palm Beach.”
The emails and documents obtained by Bloomberg show that Acosta was copied on correspondence related to the money laundering investigation.
[…]
In May 2007, Villafaña drafted a 53-page indictment and an 82-page prosecution memo, according to a 2020 Justice Department report that examined the integrity of the federal investigation. That report described Villafaña urging her superiors to move swiftly because she believed Epstein was continuing to sexually abuse girls. Instead, the report concluded, she was stonewalled by senior officials at the office who saw her as too aggressive. (The 2020 report does not mention any financial-crime element of the probe.)
The evidence Villafaña collected was serious enough that she wrote in the prosecution memo that Epstein should be charged with money-laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, according to the former law enforcement official. The indictment, a copy of which hasn’t been publicly released, was never filed and remains shrouded in secrecy.
It’s always important to follow the money. Epstein had way more of it than ever made any sense. And while he was certainly sex trafficking to many of his rich friends, there was almost certainly more to it than that.
This is a rich vein that has to be followed up. The Democrats should not let up one bit.