JP Morgan aided in Epstein sex trafficking USVI lawsuit says

The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands alleges in a lawsuit filed this week that JPMorgan Chase “turned a blind eye” to evidence that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein used the bank to facilitate sex-trafficking activities on Little St. James, the private island he owned in the territory until his 2019 suicide.
A complaint more than 100 pages long was filed by U.S.V.I. After Attorney General Denise George’s Tuesday allegations that JPMorgan failed to report Epstein’s suspicious activities and provided the financier with services reserved for high-wealth clients after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution in Palm Beach, Fla., the territory reserved judgement.
The complaint alleges that the territory’s Department of Justice investigation “revealed that 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.”
The bank was accused of ignoring evidence for “more than a decade because of Epstein’s own financial footprint, and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to the bank.”
“JP Morgan’s senior levels advocated and approved these decisions,” it said.
According to the complaint, which included several pages that were redacted in whole or in part, the bank allegedly “facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of — and were in fact part of — a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude of dozens of women and girls in and beyond the Virgin Islands.”
According to the accounts at JP Morgan, human trafficking is the primary business.
JPMorgan Chase declined to comment when NPR reached out to them.
Superior Court ruled that the V.I.P.D. must stop using a controversial stop-and-frisk policy
The V.I.P.D.’s use of a controversial stop-and-frisk policy was ruled to be illegal by the U.S.V.I. Superior Court just weeks ago, and now on Tuesday they are taking legal action. The attorney general’s office said in a Dec. 1 statement that a $105 million settlement was announced with Epstein’s estate, which is meant in part to claw back “more than $80 million in economic development tax benefits that Epstein and his co-defendants fraudulently obtained to fuel his criminal enterprise.”
The settlement also requires that the territory receive half of the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James island, where Epstein resided and many of his crimes occurred.
After a family reported that Epstein sexually abused their 14-year-old daughter in 2005, police in Palm Beach opened an investigation that led to a guilty plea three years later. Epstein served 13 months in a work-release program, was forced to pay restitution to the victims and register as a sex offender under the terms of the deal with the state of Florida.
In 2019, Epstein was again arrested on similar charges in New York; however, he killed himself while awaiting trial in federal prison.
New York state authorities investigated Deutsche Bank in 2020 for failing to report suspicious activity in Epstein’s account, even though they were aware of his criminal history. A $150 million penalty was later agreed to be paid by the bank.