Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a report alleging that several banks failed to report Jeffrey Epstein’s suspicious financial transfers in a timely manner, a lack of action that the senator said enabled Epstein to “transfer hundreds of millions of dollars around the world to finance his sex trafficking operation.”
The report, titled “Looking the Other Way,” is part of a four-year investigation that used information pulled from Suspicious Activity reports (SARs) and details gathered from court filings.
According to the report, “Wall Street banks looked the other way as Epstein withdrew millions of dollars in cash with no clear business purpose and was party to thousands of suspicious wire transfers worth more than $1 billion.” The banks discussed in the report include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.
“Multiple top executives at JPMC are implicated in major compliance failures related to Jeffrey Epstein. Several of the bankers who personally handled Epstein’s accounts, spoke with Epstein regularly, and failed to report Epstein’s suspicious transactions are still employed in senior positions at the bank today,” the report condemns.
Bank of America previously reached a settlement with victims of Jeffrey Epstein, agreeing to pay $72.5 million. “While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs,” the bank said in a statement.
In 2023, JPMorgan Chase settled a lawsuit with the Virgin Islands surrounding claims that the bank benefited from Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation and failed to report suspicious financial activity.
