
Jeffrey Epstein's mystery bank came alive after his death - AndrewBissell
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/business/jeffrey-epstein-estate-bank.html
======
proximitysauce
_Records filed by the estate on Friday indicate that Southern Country had
$693,157 in assets when Mr. Epstein died on Aug. 10. Then, in mid-December,
the estate transferred $15.5 million to Southern Country in two checks.
Southern Country sent back $2.6 million, leaving the total it received at
$12.9 million. The documents filed by the estate do not give a reason for the
transfers._

 _It’s also not clear what Southern Country did with that money. Two weeks
later, the year-end value of Southern Country’s assets was $499,759, according
to the estate’s filings._

So ~$12.5M transferred after his death is missing an unaccounted for? That's
pretty outrageous. Are there methods for tracking that money down? The article
doesn't really say anything about an investigation into its whereabouts.

~~~
micah94
It's really hard not to jump down the rabbit hole, but how else to explain the
lax "investigation". There's millions of dollars moving around and nobody
cares? Of course they could track this down. But the Virgin Islands isn't
going to implicate themselves in this. They consider themselves a victim too
(metoo!). I'll just leave my comments there.

~~~
Thorrez
Why do you say no one cares? It sounds like the judge cares. Obviously the New
York Times cares too.

> a magistrate judge, Carolyn Hermon-Purcell, questioned the estate’s lawyers
> about the transfers to Southern Country, saying the disclosure was not
> satisfactory. The judge said she did not know why Southern Country would be
> receiving checks from the estate. “There’s no explanation for it,” she said.

> A lawyer for the estate responded that some of the payment had been made in
> error, but the judge was not satisfied with his response and asked him to
> follow up with a fuller accounting.

------
searcher1
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation for
investigations being constantly spiked or important evidence repeatedly
disappearing during Epstein's life, is that enough high-ranking officials got
invited to "parties" and slept with his underage sex slaves (or worse) on
video, and were then blackmailed. The fact that even _after_ his life there
aren't gobs of collaborators being arrested also leads me to think that he
wasn't even in charge of the whole thing.

~~~
mgolawala
I am not normally a conspiracy theorist.. but I have come to suspect the same.

One example, despite all that has come up in the this case, and the number of
times Ghislaine Maxwell's name has been brought up, there is no word of her
whereabouts. Unless we think she is some Jason Bourne level expert that can
just make herself disappear, I can think of only three explanations -

1) The law enforcement agencies are choosing not to find her and track her
down for some reason. 2) She is being kept hidden (willingly or unwillingly)
by someone else who has the means and ability to do so. 3) She is already dead
and her body will turn up at some point.

The thought there could be such types of 'cover ups' in the western democratic
world is very scary. I was always certain this stuff only happened in the
movies, now I am not as sure about that.

~~~
marriedWpt
Your surprise that this happens under democracy- does that change your
political views?

It doesn't change mine. The government is notorious for being corrupt and
inefficient.

I hear this and it makes me horrified of the thought of government takeover of
a sector.

~~~
gameswithgo
>The government is notorious for being corrupt and inefficient

So is the private sector. Excellence is rare. Such is life, welcome to earth.

~~~
marriedWpt
The private sector goes out of business. The government lives until it
collapses.

~~~
siv-
> lives until it collapses.

Usually due to government intervention.

Corrupt and bloated businesses also "live until they collapse". I trust in
democracy more than markets.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
> I trust in democracy more than markets.

I don't. People vote against their best interests all the time. The SF housing
market is self-inflicted from people voting against new housing, because many
of them don't understand the concept of supply and demand.

Neither markets nor democracy are perfect, but at least free markets are
efficient.

~~~
yellowapple
> many of them don't understand the concept of supply and demand.

Or they understand supply and demand perfectly well, and figured out that if
they legislatively block new development, fixed supply + growing demand =
rising home prices = better investment.

------
krick
Let me wonder aloud here. The story goes that Epstein was a Mossad puppet in
an operation that served to control the richest, most powerful and
influential, most well-connected people alive, to extent to significantly
affect things on global political stage. That operation was successfully going
on for decades. (That's impressive, but wouldn't really surprise me, as we
know for a fact that some even more impressive success stories of several
government intelligence agencies dismissed as "conspiracy stories" for decades
turned out to be true.)

Then, this very valuable asset (virtually untouchable for some very high-
profile people) gets compromised because some _nobody_ accused him of "sexual
abuse". There is an investigation, arrest, conviction, yet nothing really
leaks, he gets off relatively easy, his masters don't think it is necessary to
get rid of him and the whole (pretty public by now, with multiple very famous
people low-key-affected) goes on in this messy way for 15 years.

After 15 years he suddenly gets arrested again, this time for good, the whole
story gets incredibly public, his bosses suddenly (again, 15 years) realise
that he is a liability and decide to get rid of him. He gets killed in a cell
by Mossad agents, this is staged as a suicide, which is another "conspiracy
theory" for a short while, but in the end we all know that Epstein didn't kill
himself. Key evidence disappears and the case is covered on multiple levels,
leading up to some very high ranks.

Ok, there are plenty of really really suspicious inconsistencies in that story
already, but here's what really baffles me: how come this very well-organized,
lead by world-class professionals and covered up by incredibly influential
people (both on the "offending" and "blackmailed" sides) operation gets
"cleaned up" in a way such that every fucking couch potato in the internet (HN
included) sees that this is obviously staged? Mossad cannot silently get rid
of people?

I mean, of course everybody (again, HN community members _especially_
included) loves to think they are wa-ay smarter than some Mossad goons and
dirty politicians covering this up. But seriously. How can this possibly be so
obvious (yet still so mysterious! — we really know nothing in paricluar)
unless somebody really wants it to be obvious?

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
"That's impressive, but wouldn't really surprise me, as we know for a fact
that some even more impressive success stories of several government
intelligence agencies dismissed as "conspiracy stories" for decades turned out
to be true."

I would be interested in these, any Wikipedia links?

~~~
doubt_me
the only reason why MK Ultra was discovered was through a cache of just under
100k files that were supposed to be destroyed but ended up being found on
accident. This forced the CIA to shut it down after it being unknown to the
public for over 30 years. aka we don't really know how far back it goes and
most likely will never understand the entirety of its reach. The Water gate
scandal had everyone in the CIA destroying everything under strict rules if my
memory serves correct.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra)

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Where would the conspiracy therory on MK Ultra be? That the CIA has a research
programm using drugs and psychology to find a truth serum against spies of the
Soviet Union? And people said this is a conspiracy theory and then the Church
commission proofed it not to be one?

How would the Phoenix Program also be a conspiracy theory?

Where is the difference between a secret government agency program and a
conspiracy?

------
Animats
Epstein may have the record for pimping at scale. There have been pimps for
several thousand years. There have been pimps using blackmail. That's not new.

Becoming a billionaire with a private island that way, though - that's new.

~~~
ColanR
You hope it's new. I don't think there's anything that he did that couldn't
have been done by someone else in the past 2-3000 years.

------
Traster
>“Bank regulators expect applicants to be candid,”

Jesus wept. Is this it? That's the level of scrutiny?

~~~
rukuu001
I know, right? I read this:

"As a bank regulator, I’d be outraged to learn that an applicant had misled me
in that way."

And laughed out loud. I feel insulted just reading that.

------
solarkraft
[http://archive.is/g7OGd](http://archive.is/g7OGd)

~~~
judge2020
Off-topic but for some reason i'm now able to access archive.is via
Cloudflare. Queries using 1^4 over DoH are only failing about 1/2 of the time
(datacenter ATL).

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
me too, but only after solving 20 captchas - classic clownflare :)

~~~
nacs
The number of captchas for the "I am not a robot" checkbox you have to solve
is decided by Google's algorithms -- not really a Cloudflare choice other than
them allowing their users to show that Captcha page in the first place.

------
afpx
Is it that easy to start a new bank?

~~~
zonethundery
Ehhh, it can be (there used to be ads in the back of the Economist for this
sort of thing). The hard part is getting correspondent relationships with
bigger banks (i.e. a bank account for your bank).

The difficulty of that exercise is supposed to be directly proportional to the
AML/KYC reputation of the jurisdiction granting the charter.

Exceptions abound, of course, and possession of incriminating video of a bank
executive might make it a lot easier.

------
nestlequ1k
Amazing how millions of dollars just disappear and no one knows where it went.

------
bhouston
I heard Epstein wanted to have tons of babies in some weird Boys from Brazil
scenario. Did he end up doing that? Is this money going to support them?

------
readhn
there is a strong case to be made that Epstein could still be alive.

Per interviews with the victims he video recorded EVERYTHING at his
properties. Pinhole cameras, CCTVs in bedrooms/showers etc you name it.

Chances are in order to protect himself - he had blackmail material on people
we all know. If acts described by the victims were secretly taped then those
people are royally (pun intended) screwed.

Now the real question is - who in the world is capable to pull off an escape
from a prison / suicide / body double swap?

“I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it
alone.”-Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami.

So the answer is - CIA.

Epstein's buddy Bill Clinton has a "dirty" drug / CIA connection from his Mena
/ Arkansas days going back to the 80's (it was widely publicized, refer to the
book " Crossfire: Witness in the Clinton Investigation").

CIA is the only organization capable to get Epstein out and safe / get him new
identity and help disappear.

The truth? We will never know.

~~~
Supermancho
> [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alexander-acosta-
> dod...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alexander-acosta-dodges-
> when-asked-if-jeffrey-epstein-was-an-intelligence-asset)

This is something I had not read before. Thanks for bringing it up.

