Wyden Expands Epstein Investigation with Probe of Hundreds of Suspicious Bank of New York Mellon Transactions

Wyden Expands Epstein Investigation with Probe of Hundreds of Suspicious Bank of New York Mellon Transactions

Epstein Moved Nearly $400 Million in and out of Accounts at Bank of New York Mellon through 270 Wire Transfers; the Bank Waited Years to Flag the Transactions with the Treasury Department

Washington, D.C. - Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., expanded his investigation of the financing of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking network today with a new probe of Epstein's client relationship with Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) and the hundreds of millions of dollars he moved in suspicious transactions through BNY accounts.

In a letter to BNY CEO Robin Vince, Senator Wyden stated that committee investigators had uncovered a 2019 filing in which the bank disclosed that Epstein had moved $378 million in and out of BNY accounts through 270 wire transfers, and that the bank had failed to identify a legitimate business purpose for any of those transactions. Senator Wyden's letter also noted that many of Epstein's wire transfers exhibited patterns and structuring indicative of money laundering, yet BNY failed to flag the transactions with the Treasury Department until 2019, more than a decade after the transactions were made -- a potential violation of the Bank Secrecy Act.

In his letter to BNY's CEO, Senator Wyden wrote: "Unfortunately, much remains unknown about the extent to which BNY executives may have turned a blind eye to Epstein's conduct … BNY's failure to contemporaneously report Epstein's suspicious activity to federal law enforcement may have enabled Jeffrey Epstein's horrific crimes and allowed the abuse of women and girls to continue for years. BNY may also have broken the law by waiting years to report Epstein's suspicious transactions to U.S. regulators. Suspicious activity reports are designed to alert federal law enforcement to potential criminal activity and assist with investigation, and for banks to withhold these reports until a suspect like Jeffrey Epstein is already behind bars is an impediment to our criminal justice system."

Updating on the status of his investigation and next steps, Senator Wyden said the following: "I'm into year four of this follow-the-money investigation, and among my core takeaways is that there is a pervasive culture of lawlessness on Wall Street as these banks turn a blind eye to the criminal activities of billionaires like Jeffrey Epstein. Every one of these banks that enabled Epstein by waiting years to flag his suspicious transactions ought to face criminal investigation for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, and individual bankers ought to be investigated too. If the Trump administration wasn't running a full-on pedophile protection program, these investigations would already be underway. Furthermore, this BNY case is yet another example of why Congress needs to pass my bill that would compel the Treasury Department to turn over its Epstein bank records for further investigation. Secretary Bessent is blocking investigators from following the money, and it's long past time for him to get out of the way."

Senator Wyden is also developing legislation that would address the systemic compliance breakdowns his investigation has uncovered across the Wall Street banks whose failure to flag Epstein's suspicious payments enabled his crimes to continue.

Senator Wyden's letter to BNY, available in full here, posed the following questions:

1. Please provide copies of all suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by BNY with the U.S. Treasury Department related to the following individuals and entities: Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Darren Indyke, Richard Kahn, Harry Beller. (Air Ghislaine).
   
   
2. For each suspicious wire transfer to and from Epstein's accounts at BNY reported to the U.S. Treasury Department in 2019, please provide the following information: The date of each transaction, the dollar amount involved, the sender/recipient of the funds, and the documented purpose for each transaction, and the correspondent bank account used (if applicable).
   
   
3. Prior to Epstein's arrest in July of 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges, did BNY Mellon file any SARs with the Treasury Department for activity from accounts related to Jeffrey Epstein? If yes, please provide the number of SARs filed, the date each SAR was filed, and the dollar value of the transaction activity being reported for each SAR.
   
   
4. Please provide a list of signatories of accounts owned or controlled by Jeffrey Epstein while Epstein was a BNY client. Please note each specific account in which the following individuals had signatory authority: Darren Indyke, Harry Beller, Richard Kahn.
   
   
5. Please provide copies of all know your customer ("KYC") and customer due diligence ("CDD") profiles prepared by BNY Mellon for Jeffrey Epstein between 2003 and 2019.
   
   
6. Please provide the name of the relationship managers at BNY responsible for Epstein's accounts as well as their direct supervisors while Epstein was a client of BNY.
   
   
7. Why did Jeffrey Epstein make at least 18 round dollar wire transfers in $1 million installments in 2007 from his accounts at BNY? Did BNY Mellon employees inquire about the purpose of these transactions or conduct any enhanced due diligence? If yes, what was the result of this review and were these transactions reported to the U.S. Treasury Department in a timely manner?
   
   
8. Has there ever been an internal investigation by BNY into BNY executives for their management of Jeffrey Epstein's accounts at BNY? If yes, please provide the results of that investigation.
   
   
9. Please provide a list of all cash withdrawals in excess of $10,000 made from Epstein's accounts at BNY between 2001 and 2019, including the stated purpose of each of these transactions.

Senator Wyden's Epstein investigation began in 2022 with an inquiry into the sex trafficker's financial relationship with multi-billionaire Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management. In 2024, following a request from Finance Committee Democratic staff for access to Treasury's Epstein files, the Biden administration allowed committee investigators to review more than a thousand pages of documents in person at the Treasury Department. Later that year Senator Wyden requested the Treasury produce the Epstein file for the committee to investigate further. He made the same request early in the Trump administration, which came into office promising a greater level of transparency on Epstein matters. He also obtained Leon Black's settlement with the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and released new information pertaining to Black's payment of $170 million to Epstein over several years, ostensibly for tax and estate planning services. In June Senator Wyden again sought the Epstein files and laid out a blueprint for a proper follow-the-money investigation given the Trump administration's refusal to act, and the following month he revealed that Epstein's huge transactions and tax planning work may never have been investigated or audited by the IRS. In a letter to the Treasury Secretary sent in September, Senator Wyden identified several individuals with documented Epstein ties and again demanded the Epstein files. In November Senator Wyden released a detailed analysis of the ways in which JPMorgan Chase protected Epstein and enabled his sex trafficking operation through an egregious series of compliance failures spanning nearly two decades. In December Senator Wyden blasted the Trump administration for violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by withholding the vast majority of the Epstein files it is legally required to release publicly, and he questioned why the Department of Justice had reportedly failed to question key Epstein co-conspirators in any criminal investigation related to Epstein's trafficking network.

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