Long after his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution and just days before his final arrest in 2019, Jeffrey Epstein had his eyes on a palace in Morocco. He wanted to buy it, but he needed help. 

For that, he would turn to Charles Schwab, according to new reporting by Reuters, which cited records in the U.S. Justice Department’s Epstein files. 

The newly released records show that the brokerage opened three accounts in April 2019 for Epstein-related companies, including one for Southern Trust, a business that was attempting to purchase the opulent Bin Ennakhil palace in Marrakesh. At Epstein’s direction, Charles Schwab wired about $27.7 million to a Morocco-based real-estate broker just days before the financier’s arrest on sex-trafficking charges in early July of that year.

The transactions, reported by Reuters for the first time, detail how the brokerage handled funds tied to Epstein over several months in 2019, and after he had come under renewed public scrutiny. Schwab flagged the payments in a suspicious activity report (SAR) to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on July 13, 2019, seven days after Epstein’s arrest.

The SAR was initially released as part of the Epstein files only to be subsequently removed from the Justice Department’s database without explanation, Reuters said. 

The Southern Trust account listed Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn, as an authorized individual and identified Epstein as the company’s president and sole beneficial owner, Reuters reported.

Between June 26 and July 9, 2019, Southern Trust instructed Schwab to wire about €11.15 million to broker Marc Leon, but the instruction was later reversed. Schwab told FinCEN in the SAR that the funds were sent to a Julius Baer account in Switzerland held by Leon, and that a caller, whose identity was redacted, asked to terminate the transfer because the terms of the deal were not “agreeable,” Reuters said.

The SAR said the reversal meant the funds would be credited back on July 10.

Schwab then processed a second wire request, signed by Epstein, and sent nearly $15 million to purchase the same property despite the fact that the account lacked sufficient funds because the earlier transfer had not yet been returned, the news agency said. 

The second transfer was cancelled on July 9, three days after Epstein’s arrest, at the request of an individual acting on Epstein’s behalf whose name was redacted in the SAR. After Epstein’s arrest, an unidentified associate asked Schwab whether future transfers from the Southern Trust account would still require two signatures because more money would be sent soon, Reuters said. 

Kahn is expected to testify before Congress next week to answer questions about whether he facilitated Epstein’s crimes while managing the late sex trafficker’s murky finances, according to the report. 

Leon told Reuters that Epstein had sought to buy the palace as early as 2011. With more than 60 marble fountains, multiple gardens, hundreds of olive trees, and more than 2,000 palms, the palace sits on property roughly the size of New York City’s Washington Square Park, the news outlet said. 

Read more at Reuters