JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America likely violated federal anti-money laundering (AML) laws by failing to report thousands of suspicious transactions that financed Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, according to a report released Tuesday by the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

The report, “Looking the Other Way,” caps a multiyear investigation by Sen. Ron Wyden’s staff drawing on a February 2024 review of suspicious activity reports (SARs) at a Treasury Department reading room, bank records unsealed in litigation and documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Rather than reporting the activity in real time, the three banks retroactively flagged more than $1.4 billion in transactions in 2019 and 2020, after Epstein’s July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges, the report said. 

JPMorgan filed seven SARs covering $4.3 million in Epstein-related activity between 2002 and 2016, according to the report. In August and September 2019—some six years after the bank exited him as a client—it filed two SARs covering more than 5,000 wire transfers worth roughly $1.3 billion.

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks must file a SAR within 30 days of initial detection and in no case later than 60 days, the report noted. 

Epstein and his associates held 134 accounts at JPMorgan between 1998 and 2013, including 69 for associates such as Ghislaine Maxwell, the report said. Investigators identified more than $7 million in cash withdrawals from 2002 to 2013, more than $3 million in direct payments to women and about $25 million in transfers to Maxwell from JPMorgan accounts. 

Some payments went to women in Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Turkmenistan through correspondent accounts at Russian banks now under U.S. sanctions, including Sberbank and Alfa Bank.

Epstein was designated a high-risk client as early as 2008 because of connections to human trafficking and underage prostitution, and decisions on his accounts were escalated to members of the operating committee reporting to CEO Jamie Dimon, the report said, citing internal records. Those executives included Mary Erdoes, now CEO of asset and wealth management, former investment bank chief Jes Staley, former general counsel Stephen Cutler, and John Duffy, then CEO of the U.S. private bank.

Compliance staff repeatedly pressed to terminate the relationship and were overruled, according to internal emails cited in the report. One 2010 email from an AML operations official said banking Epstein, a “known child sleaze,” undercut the bank’s anti-trafficking work.

The report also found that Duffy counseled Epstein to shift large cash withdrawals from personal accounts to an aviation account, and that senior executives approved continued work with Epstein after his 2013 exit to preserve access to billionaire Leon Black and other wealthy clients. When Duffy asked in August 2013 whether that arrangement was acceptable, Erdoes replied “Y,” the report said.

Bank of America processed 18 wire transfers totaling about $170 million from accounts controlled by Black to Epstein entities between 2012 and 2017 without meaningful due diligence, according to the lawmaker’s office. The bank did not file a SAR until Feb. 7, 2020, when it described the transfers as having “no apparent economic, business or lawful purpose.”

Black’s payments, made for purported tax and estate planning advice, accounted for $166 million of the $184 million in revenue Epstein’s Southern Trust Company reported on Virgin Islands tax filings from 2013 to 2017, or roughly 90%, making Black his single largest funder, the report said. A 2023 settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands, under which Black paid $62.5 million, states that Epstein used the money Black paid him to partially fund his operations there.

After leaving JPMorgan, Epstein moved roughly $200 million to Deutsche Bank, recruited by Paul Morris, a banker who had covered his accounts at JPMorgan, the report said. Deutsche Bank retroactively flagged 1,140 wires worth $147 million in 2019 and paid $150 million to the New York Department of Financial Services in 2020. 

Epstein’s attorney, Darren Indyke, made 97 cash withdrawals of $7,500 each from 2013 to 2017 and twice asked bank staff how to withdraw cash without triggering alerts, according to the report. When Deutsche Bank exited Epstein in 2018, relationship manager Stewart Oldfield wrote reference letters to other banks saying he was unaware of any problems with the accounts.

Indyke, accountant Richard Kahn and Harry Beller held signature authority or power of attorney over Epstein accounts and executed thousands of suspicious withdrawals and wires, yet have never been questioned by federal prosecutors, the report said. 

The congressional office called on Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Justice Department to investigate the banks and 13 named bankers, and urged House Oversight to subpoena their emails.

Wyden’s staff is drafting legislation that would require annual signed attestations on ultra-high-net-worth accounts modeled on Section 302 of Sarbanes-Oxley, raise civil and criminal penalties on individual bankers and mandate bonus clawbacks in trafficking-linked cases.

Other provisions would require Treasury notification when a bank exits a high-risk client, modeled on the Justice Department’s Swiss Bank Program “leaver lists,” require a SAR when a bank restricts a client’s access to cash, mandate enhanced due diligence on accounts opened for unrelated people under 25 and allow revocation of professional licenses for accountants and attorneys who enable trafficking. Community banks would be exempt.