- Key insight: Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said JPMorganChase, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of America ignored evidence of sex trafficking and money laundering to maintain relationships with Jeffrey Epstein and billionaire Leon Black.
- What's at stake: Wyden accused the Trump administration of obstructing his investigation. At the same time, he called on federal agencies to investigate and fine the banks, as well as individual bankers.
- Forward Look: Wyden said he plans to introduce legislation imposing stricter due-diligence requirements on big banks handling ultra-wealthy clients.
UPDATE: This story includes comments from spokespeople for JPMorganChase and Bank of America. It also includes comments from an attorney for Leon Black and additional information about Black's closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee.
The report states that the three megabanks failed to request business records that would have substantiated or verified the business purpose of major suspicious transactions involving Epstein. In all, the report alleges, the banks failed to conduct appropriate due diligence on more than $170 million in payments that Leon Black, the former CEO of private equity giant Apollo Global Management, made to Epstein.
The report details suspicious activity reported by Deutsche Bank after the notorious sex offender's death in 2019 — including transfers through accounts at
It lists 13 senior bankers at
Black was Epstein's single largest source of funding, and Wyden's investigation found that Epstein relied heavily on large payments from Black to bankroll his sex-trafficking activity.
Bank records and public court filings "detail a shocking pattern of the biggest Wall Street banks in the country choosing to ignore clear evidence of sex trafficking and money laundering, just to keep a wealthy client on the books," Wyden said in a press release.
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"We began flagging suspicious transactions for the government as early as 2002 and throughout our relationship, and flagged transactions for law enforcement that could be related to human trafficking even after we closed his accounts," the
"Every one of these reports went to the government — and at no point did any law enforcement agency contact the bank, request further records or provide information that would have supported additional action by the bank," the
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Deutsche Bank said in a statement that it takes its legal obligations seriously, including "appropriately responding to authorized investigations and proceedings."
"The bank regrets our historical connection with Jeffrey Epstein. We have cooperated with regulatory and law enforcement agencies regarding their investigations and have been transparent in addressing deficiencies and investing in strengthening our control environment in parallel," a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman wrote in an email.
Wyden's report said that his investigators sent several requests for information to the banks, but they declined to answer his questions or provide documents. "Each and every bank refused to cooperate with Senator Wyden's investigation," the report states.
The report also accuses the Trump-era Treasury Department of obstructing Wyden's investigation. Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wyden, D-Ore., urged the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to conduct "thorough investigations of the activities laid out in this report," arguing that the agencies "must levy fines or criminal penalties, as appropriate."
Wyden also argued that the government should investigate three Epstein accomplices — Darren Indyke, Epstein's longtime personal attorney and co-executor of his estate, and accountants Richard Kahn and Harry Beller — who "moved significant amounts of cash around the world on Epstein's behalf." Khan was also a co-executor of Epstein's estate.
In June, Black appeared before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door deposition but reportedly refused to answer certain questions. The committee issued a formal subpoena, and Black is scheduled to appear for a formal deposition on Sept. 3.
In his opening statement in June, Black said that he did not know about Epstein's "horrific, sordid activities" until Epstein was charged with trafficking in 2019. Black said he did know that Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges relating to prostitution involving a minor, but that Epstein had said it was an isolated incident.
"Senator Wyden's assertions are outrageous and false," Susan Estrich, an attorney for Black, said Tuesday in a written statement. She also called the report "politically motivated," and she attacked Wyden for what she described as leaks to the media of confidential financial information.
Calls for investigation
In addition, Wyden called for investigators to probe individual bankers at
Wyden, who's the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, began investigating Epstein's finances in 2022, after Apollo's board of directors found that Black had paid Epstein $158 million over five years for purported tax and estate-planning advice.
Between 1998 and 2013, Epstein's primary bank was
Major banks and individuals associated with Epstein have paid more than $900 million to settle claims made in connection with Epstein's sex trafficking, Wyden's report states.
Documents obtained by Wyden's investigators show that senior leadership at
Even after
Wyden claims that several of the
"Top JPMC executives had knowledge of the pervasive presence of young women or underage girls at Epstein's homes," the report states.
In addition, Deutsche Bank ignored massive withdrawals of cash for questionable purposes from Epstein's accounts, which the report said protected "the bank's lucrative business interest in maintaining Epstein as a client."
'A repeated and intentional choice not to report the financial activity that enabled Epstein's crimes'
"This is not a matter of minor errors or occasional omissions; the investigation found that Wall Street banks failed to report thousands of suspicious transactions — they made a repeated and intentional choice not to report the financial activity that enabled Epstein's crimes," the report states. "The Epstein [suspicious activity reports] include damning evidence that the banks failed to report Epstein's suspicious financial activity to the Treasury Department in a timely manner, as they are required to do by law."
Wyden said that his small team of investigators "connected the dots and found evidence of multiple crimes related to Epstein's associates."
"This report is a ready-made roadmap for prosecutors, investigators and members of Congress to finally start holding the Epstein class accountable," Wyden said in the press release.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration "actively obstructed and impeded" Wyden's investigation by withholding Epstein-related bank records from Senate Finance Committee investigators, the Oregon senator claims.
In 2024, investigators with the Senate Finance Committee had to conduct an "in-camera" review of a portion of the Treasury Department's Epstein file because Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to produce Epstein financial records to the committee. Senate Republicans blocked the passage of legislation called the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act, which Wyden introduced in response to Bessent's refusal to release Epstein files to the committee.
The Treasury Department and its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network regularly investigate and hold financial institutions accountable for violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to file suspicious activity reports, or SARs, or by failing to report suspicious transactions in a timely manner.
"In the past few months, Secretary Bessent has directed FinCEN to conduct a number of sweeping investigations into alleged fraud in Minnesota, yet scoffs at the idea of investigating the role Wall Street banks played in enabling Epstein's global sex trafficking for decades," the report stated.
Wyden's 67-page report, titled "Looking the Other Way," says the Oregon Democrat plans to introduce legislation to reform federal anti-money laundering laws as a result of the Epstein revelations. Specifically, Wyden wants to require bankers to personally confirm that they have reviewed and conducted legally required due diligence for large wire transfers of suspicious transactions in accounts belonging to ultra-wealthy individuals.
Bankers who fail to report suspicious transactions in a timely manner would face increased civil or even criminal penalties for negligence under the legislation, which would also require banks to notify the Treasury Department when a client is dropped due to concerns about involvement with human trafficking, money laundering or other crimes. Community banks would be exempted.
Also in the report released Tuesday, Wyden claims that he taped an interview in March with then-60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, which was part of a broader 60 Minutes segment being prepared regarding Epstein and the conduct of banks, but Alfonsi was fired shortly after the interview was recorded. Wyden said the interview won't be aired, and it's unclear whether leadership at CBS News will allow the broader segment to be aired.
