From Jeffrey Epstein to Sam Bankman-Fried to Madoff – JPMorgan Banks the Creepy Crooks

[Gunnar Larson]

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/02/from-jeffrey-epstein-to-sam-bankman-fried-to-madoff-jpmorgan-banks-the-creepy-crooks/


By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 16, 2023 ~

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase Throughout a Period of Five
Criminal Felony Counts Brought by the U.S. Department of Justice

If yesterday had been National Creepy Crooks Day, JPMorgan Chase would have
taken top honors. Bloomberg News reported on the creepy emails that former
JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley was sending back and forth from his
email account at the bank to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as the
bank was only too happy to handle 55 accounts worth hundreds of millions of
dollars for Epstein. One set of emails suggested Staley was having kinky or
sexual relationships with individuals dressed up as Disney characters.
(Leave it to JPMorgan to take down not only its own brand but taint
Disney’s brand as well.)

Anyone who has ever worked at a major Wall Street brokerage firm or
investment bank knows full well that emails are monitored by the company.
This suggests that Staley knew he had nothing to fear from the bank’s email
monitors.

A 2019 investigation conducted by Wall Street On Parade indicated that
Epstein’s ties to JPMorgan Chase date back to at least 2001, when Epstein
presided as Chairman over an offshore company incorporated in Bermuda
called Liquid Funding Ltd. That company grew to at least $6.7 billion in
outstanding liabilities. JPMorgan Chase was one of three banks providing a
$250 million liquidity facility to Liquid Funding Ltd. JPMorgan Chase was
also listed as its “Security Trustee.” Liquid Funding appeared to be
propping up dodgy subprime mortgage dealers by giving them loans. Bear
Stearns, where Epstein had worked from 1976 to 1981, owned 40 percent of
the equity in the company.

If the Bloomberg News article wasn’t enough repulsion for one day, the New
York Times reported yesterday that “JPMorgan holds $400 million that FTX’s
founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, invested in an obscure hedge fund, Modulo
Capital….” Since federal regulators allege that all of Bankman-Fried’s
wealth comes from equity investors he defrauded or the looted accounts of
his crypto customers, it appears that, once again, JPMorgan Chase has
failed miserably in conducting proper due diligence on its customers, or
has simply chosen to look the other way as it did during Bernie Madoff’s
decades at the bank. (Bankman-Fried has pleaded innocent to an eight-count
indictment. Two of his former top executives, however, Caroline Ellison and
Gary Wang, have pleased guilty to similar charges and are cooperating with
federal prosecutors.)

One would think that the two criminal felony counts that JPMorgan Chase was
hit with by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 in the Madoff Ponzi
scheme matter might have changed its jaded ways. (It didn’t.) The layers of
fraud taking place between the bank and Madoff resembled Russian Nesting
Dolls – frauds within frauds – as we detailed in our investigation in 2014.
The bank even loaned Madoff’s “business” $145 million in 2005 and 2006,
which helped to prop up his Ponzi scheme when it was on the verge of
collapsing. When the revolting details of the relationship between the bank
and Madoff surfaced, the Los Angeles Times made an astute query in a photo
caption of a smirking Madoff, asking: “Bernie Madoff: Was he part of the
JPMorgan ring, or was JPMorgan part of his ring?”

Two trial lawyers literally wrote the book in answering that question. In
JPMadoff: The Unholy Alliance Between America’s Biggest Bank and America’s
Biggest Crook, Helen Davis Chaitman and Lance Gotthoffer argue that RICO,
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, is “the perfect
tool” to bring JPMorgan to heel. The lawyers explain:

“In enacting RICO, Congress meant business. This powerful law enforcement
weapon requires proof that the defendant committed ‘at least two acts of
racketeering activity’ within a ten year period, that are related to
financial gain. The predicate acts are drawn from a list of 27 federal and
eight state law crimes. They include the typical mob crimes like murder,
kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, extortion, and drug dealing. But the
predicate acts also include a lot of the crimes committed by Wall Street
banksters in order to enrich themselves at the expense of others, such as
bribery, mail and wire fraud, fraud in the sale of securities,
embezzlement, financial institution fraud, obstruction of justice,
tampering with or retaliating against a witness, victim or informant, and
money laundering.”

Yesterday’s Bloomberg News article about Jes Staley’s sick emails to
Epstein are derived from a lawsuit brought against JPMorgan Chase by the
government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a secluded
island compound. The lawsuit alleges the following:

“For two decades, Defendant JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (‘JPMorgan’)
facilitated and sustained Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking by handling and
[redacted] his payments to young women and girls who were his victims and
recruiters. Sex-trafficking was the principal business of Epstein’s
accounts held by JPMorgan, and JPMorgan profited handsomely from the
hundreds of millions of dollars in assets in those accounts, in addition to
Epstein’s connections and referrals of ultrawealthy and powerful clients.”

What’s curious about the above paragraph is that the redacted portion
appears to be only a one-word redaction. Let’s face it, those two sentences
are absolutely devastating to the largest bank in the United States, so
what one word could be so much worse that it needs to be blacked out for
public digestion? Try finding a word that fit’s in that phrase: “…by
handling and [redacted] his payments to young women and girls who were his
victims and recruiters.” The dangerous word can’t be “facilitating” because
that word appears unredacted throughout the lawsuit in describing the role
JPMorgan Chase played in payments to Epstein’s victims. The unredacted
words “handling” and “facilitating” suggest an enabler but not a direct
participant in the crime. Words like “making” or “processing” on the other
hand, sound like direct participation in the crime.

As for those creepy references to Disney characters, the Virgin Islands’
lawsuit shares this:

“In July 2010, Staley emailed Epstein saying ‘That was fun. Say hi to Snow
White[,]’ to which Epstein responded ‘[W]hat character would you like
next?’ and Staley said ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Epstein also emailed Staley
photos of young women in seductive poses. Following the internal reports of
additional law enforcement investigations into Epstein’s sex-trafficking in
2010 and 2011, JPMorgan’s response was to send Staley in 2011 to obtain
Epstein’s denial, on which the bank hung its hat.”

And there is this:

“Throughout its relationship with Epstein, JPMorgan’s internal
investigation teams identified evidence that he was engaged in criminal
sex-trafficking. In 2006, JPMorgan’s Global Corporate Security Division
reported that Epstein was indicted in Florida for felony solicitation of
minors for prostitution. In 2008, Epstein pled guilty in Florida to
solicitation or procurement of a minor for prostitution and became a
registered sex offender. JPMorgan’s continued relationship with Epstein
after his criminal plea was reviewed and approved at the highest levels of
the bank. An August 2008 internal email states, ‘I would count Epstein’s
assets as a probable outflow for ’08 ($120mm or so?) as I can’t imagine it
will stay (pending Dimon review).’ Yet the assets did stay [redacted text].
In 2010, JPMorgan’s risk management division discussed new allegations of
an investigation of Epstein involving child sex-trafficking. Throughout
2010 and 2011, JPMorgan’s compliance and security divisions reported
evidence of Epstein’s engagement in sex-trafficking, including his
settlement of a dozen civil lawsuits and his payments of $1 million to the
MC2 modeling agency engaged with Epstein in child sex-trafficking, ‘luring’
girls on the pretext of providing modeling opportunities and careers.”

Given the five criminal felony counts that the U.S. Department of Justice
has brought against JPMorgan Chase in the past nine years and its
institutional knowledge of the crimes this bank is willing to tolerate in
its search for profits, one has to ask this: why is the government of the
U.S. Virgin Islands bringing these charges instead of the government of the
United States?

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