"Go Talk To Bill Gates About Me": How JP Morgan Enabled Jeffrey Epstein's Crimes, Snagged Netanyahu Meeting
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/go-talk-bill-gates-about-me-how-jp-morgan-enabled-jeffrey-epsteins-crimes-snagged
On an autumn day in 2011, Jeffrey Epstein stepped into JPMorgan Chase’s headquarters at 270 Park Avenue and rode the elevator to the executive floors where the bank’s leaders, including Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, kept their offices. Epstein, who had pleaded guilty to a sex crime in Florida three years earlier, had a message for the bank’s top lawyer, Stephen Cutler: he had “turned over a new leaf,” he said, and powerful friends could vouch for him. “Go talk to Bill Gates about me.”
Key takeaways:
Epstein was connected to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, not just former PM Ehud Barak
He wired 'hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to Russian banks and young Eastern European women'
Accounts for young women were opened without in-person verification (in one case a SSN could not be confirmed)
Jes Staley was constantly running interference for Epstein vs. JPM compliance concerns
At Jes Staley’s urging, compliance spoke with Epstein’s lawyer Ken Starr, who insisted "no crimes" had been committed.
Epstein had accounts at JPM for at least 134 (!) entities
JPMorgan funded/serviced pieces tied to Ghislaine Maxwell (millions, incl. $7.4M for a Sikorsky helicopter) and helped finance MC2, the modeling agency linked to Jean-Luc Brunel.
For more than a decade, JPMorgan Chase processed over $1 billion in transactions for Jeffrey Epstein - including hundreds of millions routed to Russian banks and payments to young Eastern European women, opened at least 134 accounts tied to him and his associates, and even helped move millions to Ghislaine Maxwell - including $7.4 million for a Sikorsky helicopter - while anti–money laundering staff repeatedly flagged large cash withdrawals and wire patterns aligned with known trafficking indicators, according to a new report from the NY Times following a six-year investigation that involved "some 13,000 pages" of legal and financial records. Funny how they sat on this until now - maybe it's related to this, but do read on.
Inside JPMorgan, the debate over whether to keep Epstein as a client had been simmering for years. Epstein was lucrative. His accounts held more than $200 million and generated millions in fees, and he opened doors to wealthy prospects and world leaders. He had helped midwife the bank’s 2004 purchase of Highbridge Capital Management, earning a $15 million payday. Senior bankers credited him with introductions to figures such as Sergey Brin and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sure enough, just as more bank employees were losing patience with Epstein in 2011, he began dangling more goodies. That March, to the pleasant surprise of JPMorgan’s investment bankers in Israel, they were granted an audience with Netanyahu. The bankers informed Staley, who forwarded their email to Epstein with a one-word message: “Thanks.” (The bank spokesman said JPMorgan “neither needed nor sought Epstein’s help for meetings with any government leaders.”) And around that same time, Epstein presented an opportunity that, like the Highbridge deal years earlier, had the potential to be transformative.
This one involved Bill Gates, who had only recently entered Epstein’s orbit. In an apparent effort to ingratiate — and further entangle — himself with his bankers and the Microsoft co-founder, Epstein pitched Erdoes and Staley on creating an enormous investment and charitable fund with something like $100 billion in assets. -NY Times
Somewhere in all the mess that is JPM and Epstein is a WaMu just waiting to pop out…