The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) opened a secret investigation into Jeffrey Epstein in 2015 on suspicions of money laundering, drug trafficking, and running a prostitution ring that procured Eastern European women for high-profile clients, according to Bloomberg.
The probe grew out of a broader organized-crime investigation and was handled by the DEA’s Special Operations Division together with the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF). It began after an informant told investigators that Epstein helped fund and distribute club drugs including ecstasy, ketamine, and methamphetamine, and that he ran a prostitution ring, Bloomberg reported.
In documentation related to the investigation, DEA officials ultimately identified a group closely linked to Epstein, including his accountants, attorneys, and European women who worked for him as fashion models, according to the report, which separately noted that two businesses had also been flagged in the probe.
The news outlet said none of the people identified in the investigation were charged as a result of the probe, and it remains unclear how long the case stayed open or what investigators ultimately concluded because the full files have not been released.
But a heavily redacted 69-page OCDETF target profile described “illegitimate wire transfers” tied to suspected drug and prostitution activity in New York City and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The 12 individuals identified in the document, Bloomberg reported, included Epstein’s brother Mark, lawyer Darren Indyke, accountants Bella Klein, Harry Beller and Richard Kahn, along with several women connected to Epstein and two businesses, Wagging Tail Entertainment and Ossa Properties Inc.
Epstein and 12 others were the subjects of 40 suspicious activity reports filed with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network between 2010 and 2015, for suspect financial activity totaling nearly $50 million, as well as 37 currency transaction reports between 2010 and 2014 totaling $1.2 million, according to Bloomberg.
Investigators had long tried to trace how Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation was financed. After his 2009 release from a Florida jail sentence, the disgraced financier took steps to cover his tracks by using assistants and accountants to wire money to women around the world, sometimes without a stated business purpose. He also instructed staff on how to answer questions from financial institutions, according to the report.
In one 2012 email, Epstein told an accountant to say a recipient was simply borrowing money after Western Union blocked transfers totaling more than $6,000.
Bloomberg said the target profile also showed that more than a dozen U.S. and foreign law-enforcement bodies queried a national crime database 311 times between 2013 and 2015 for information about Epstein, underscoring the breadth of official scrutiny years before his 2019 arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Read more at Bloomberg