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After receiving a huge settlement from the estate of Jeffery Epstein, the Virgin Islands is turning its sights on JP Morgan Chase, accusing the bank of facilitating the convicted sex offender’s abuse of women and girls.
USVI Attorney General Denise George alleges that the bank should have known about Epstein’s illegal activity, and as part of its anti-money laundering procedures, should have reported their client to authorities. Instead, George accuses the bank of turning a blind eye to the sex trafficking operations that went on on Epstein’s private island in the USVI, Little St. James.
According to the lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the federal court in Manhattan New York, “JP Morgan knowingly, negligently and unlawfully provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise. Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan.”
JP Morgan has not yet commented on the lawsuit, however reports from a source to the Guardian newspaper are that the disgraced financier’s relationship with the bank ended “long before his ongoing misconduct became known."
However the suit claims that the bank concealed Epstein’s wire and cash transactions that “raised suspicion of a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude” of his victims."
In November, Epstein’s estate agreed on a groundbreaking settlement with the USVI, agreeing to pay over $100 million dollars in cash as well as half the proceeds from the future sale of Little St. James. The settlement also includes the repayment of over $80 million dollars in tax benefits that Epstein and his companies fraudulently received from the Government of the Virgin Islands.
At the time, George underscored the territory’s intolerance for criminal behavior. "We are sending a clear message that the Virgin Islands will not serve as a haven for human trafficking,” the attorney general declared.
