About this episode
JPMorgan’s internal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, known as “Project Jeep,” did not begin until 2019, after Epstein had been arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges and the bank’s long relationship with him was becoming a major public liability. Court filings showed that senior JPMorgan officials ordered an expanded review of Epstein, his related parties, his relationship with former executive Jes Staley, and connections involving Highbridge Capital and Bear Stearns. By October 2019, the bank had assembled a 22-page review of electronic communications involving Epstein, Staley, Mary Erdoes and other JPMorgan personnel, including emails dating back to 2008. The problem for JPMorgan was that the review was uncovering evidence inside its own systems showing just how deeply Epstein had interacted with senior people at the bank. Rather than revealing an obscure client who had slipped unnoticed through compliance, Project Jeep documented years of communications, internal concerns and relationships that had existed while Epstein remained a profitable JPMorgan customer. What made the investigation particularly damaging was how late it came. JPMorgan personnel had been aware of serious concerns surrounding Epstein years before Project Jeep existed: internal records referenced allegations involving underage girls, large cash withdrawals, trafficking investigations and questions about whether payments connected to modeling businesses could involve procurement. Yet the bank continued doing business with Epstein until 2013, and only launched its sweeping internal reconstruction after his 2019 arrest made the relationship impossible to ignore. Project Jeep therefore looked less like a compliance system successfully identifying and stopping a dangerous client than a giant institution trying to determine, after the fact, how much exposure it had created for itself. The investigation eventually became important evidence in litigation against JPMorgan because it demonstrated that the bank itself could trace warning signs and troubling communications across years of records—the obvious question being why that scrutiny was not applied with the same urgency while Epstein was still walking through JPMorgan’s doors. to contact me: [email protected]
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