Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden released a 67-page report Tuesday, “Looking the Other Way,” accusing Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Bank of America of enabling Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking through years of delayed reporting.
Wyden’s office shared an advance copy with Bloomberg, which first reported its findings ahead of the public release. The report leans on Treasury Department records that haven’t been made public and pushes for federal investigations, stricter money-laundering rules, and real consequences for bankers who look past warning signs.
Deutsche Bank draws the sharpest new numbers. Investigators traced $250 million across Deutsche Bank filings that only surfaced after Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, including a single filing tracking 1,140 wires worth $147 million that moved through his accounts between 2013 and 2019, with red flags ranging from money that ran through modeling agencies to payments reaching women across Russia and Eastern Europe. Deutsche Bank declined to comment when Bloomberg asked about the findings.
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Bank of America flagged $170 million in transactions tied to former Apollo Global Management CEO Leon Black, who has said he paid Epstein for tax and estate-planning advice. The bank waited five to seven years to report wires that its own filing said had “no apparent economic, business or lawful purpose.”
Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, told Bloomberg the report’s claims were “outrageous and false” and accused Wyden of improperly disclosing confidential bank filings, something Wyden’s office disputes.
JPMorgan, the subject of an earlier Wyden report, drew renewed scrutiny for identifying more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions only after Epstein’s 2019 death, despite cutting ties with him in 2013. In a statement to Bloomberg, the bank said it “acted appropriately on what we knew, when we knew it.”
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Wyden plans to introduce legislation requiring senior bank officials to personally sign off each year confirming their wealthiest clients get proper vetting, plus real consequences for bankers who ignore suspicious activity.
The report also faults Senate Republicans, including Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, for blocking bills that would have forced the Treasury Department to hand the underlying records over to Congress.
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One Response
About time!!