JPMorgan Chase Executives Enabled the Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein
A Times investigation found that America’s leading bank spent years supporting — and profiting from — the notorious sex offender, ignoring red flags, suspicious activity and concerned executives.
Epstein had long been a treasured customer at JPMorgan. His accounts were brimming with more than $200 million. He generated millions of dollars in revenue for the bank, landing him atop an internal list of major money makers. He helped JPMorgan orchestrate an important acquisition. He introduced executives to men who would become lucrative clients, like the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and to global leaders, like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. He helped executives troubleshoot crises and strategize about global opportunities.
But a growing group of employees worried that JPMorgan’s association with a man who had pleaded guilty to a sex crime — and was under federal investigation for human trafficking — could harm the bank’s reputation. Just as troubling, anti-money-laundering specialists within the bank noticed Epstein’s pattern of withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars in cash virtually every month. These were red flags for illicit activity.
In Epstein’s lengthy alliance with JPMorgan, we found a more mundane, if no less damning, explanation for Epstein’s remarkable success. He was, in the words of one friend, the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, “a collector of people.” He used those relationships to cultivate new connections and establish his legitimacy. He traded favors and gossip and advice. He created an aura of indispensability and of being so plugged-in that he bordered on omniscience — traits that made him a vital asset for a worldwide cast of government and business leaders. That, in turn, gave Epstein access to more money and connections that he could use to power his criminal activities.
JPMorgan Executives: Jamie Diamond and Jes Staley are deeply enmeshed in this sordid story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/magazine/jeffrey-epstein-jp-morgan.html
Ten Democratic Senators are calling for a congressional hearing about JPMorgan Chase’s decision to keep Jeffrey Epstein as a bank client for about 15 years.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and other executives should testify under oath about what they knew about Epstein’s crimes and if they ignored red flags about his activities.
Epstein had dozens of accounts at JPMorgan’s private bank and communicated often with bank executives, connecting them to his wealthy contacts, ties The Wall Street Journal first reported in 2023 to be deeper than understood. Epstein was a JPMorgan client before and after he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008 and forced to register as a sex offender.
He was arrested in 2019, accused of orchestrating a scheme to traffic and sexually abuse girls, and died in jail of what has been ruled a suicide.
“The American people deserve to know what happened at JPMorgan and other banks that financed Mr. Epstein,” the senators wrote to Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), chair of the Senate Banking Committee.