US regulators say they are taking allegations that top banks may have facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activity “very seriously”, as they faced calls to investigate executives including the former Barclays boss Jes Staley.
In correspondence seen by the Guardian, bosses from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said they had reviewed a letter from the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, which raised concerns over bankers’ alleged support for the convicted child sex offender Epstein.
That includes Staley, who Warren said had allegedly protected Epstein’s access to the banking system while working at JP Morgan in the early 2000s. Staley has already been banned from the UK banking sector for playing down his relationship with Epstein.
While the regulators would not publicly confirm whether they were opening formal inquiries, their directors assured Warren they would take action over any potential misconduct.
“While it would be inappropriate to comment on any specific ongoing supervisory matter, I take very seriously any allegations of wrongdoing or abuse by banks and bank executives,” the comptroller of the currency, Jonathan Gould, said in a letter to Warren, who is the lead Democrat on the US Senate committee on banking, housing and urban affairs.
“We appreciate the seriousness of this matter and will continue to examine banks, including JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA, within the scope of our authority, including to ensure banks address safety and soundness concerns and violations of law under our jurisdiction,” Gould added.
Warren’s original letter raised questions over JP Morgan’s wider banking relationship with the sex offender, noting that Epstein was one of the bank’s most profitable clients before being dropped in 2013, five years after he was jailed for soliciting prostitution from a minor. The well-connected financier died in prison in July 2019, while awaiting trial over child sex trafficking charges.
The FDIC’s acting chair, Travis Hill, said the regulator took “unlawful activity involving the banking sector, including possible insider involvement in illicit activity, very seriously”.
His letter, dated 17 November, said “if this type of activity is identified” the watchdog would follow standard protocol: collecting and reviewing potential evidence, before escalating the matter to the FDIC’s inspector general’s office, which has law enforcement powers.
Wrongdoing could result in a fine and a potential ban from working in the US banking sector.
The FDIC and OCC declined to comment. The Guardian contacted Staley’s legal representative for comment.
Warren said in a statement: “Regulators need to investigate and hold accountable Epstein’s enablers – and I’ll believe they’re taking action when I see it. Americans deserve to know that their banking system isn’t facilitating the disturbing crimes of the rich and powerful.”
A spokesperson for JP Morgan did not directly comment on Warren’s correspondence with regulators but in relation to Epstein said: “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts. We ended our relationship with him six years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges. The federal government had damning information about his crimes that they failed to share with us or other banks.”
Last week Warren used an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to urge the JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, to testify in front of the US Senate banking committee.
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“They opened about 134 different accounts for Jeffrey Epstein over these years. They did more than a billion dollars in transactions for Jeffrey Epstein … He literally could walk into the bank and get $50m from JP Morgan Chase.
“So, what I’d like to do, over on the banking committee, is I’d like to have Mr Dimon and some of those other bankers come in and, under oath, testify about exactly what the financial trail is that kept Jeffrey Epstein afloat for so long.”
JP Morgan said in a statement: “Jamie never met with Epstein, spoke with him, emailed with him, and was not involved in any decisions about his account, to which he testified under oath. There are over a million pages of emails and other documents produced in this case, and not one comes even close to suggesting otherwise.”
The bank’s spokesperson added: “We will follow the law, including responding to a subpoena. Our involvement with Epstein is largely a matter of public record, with millions of pages of discovery from litigation already publicly available.”
The correspondence between Warren and US financial regulators comes days after Donald Trump was pressed into signing a bill that will lead to the US justice department releasing all of its unclassified records, documents, and communications related to Epstein and the co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
It follows initial backtracking by the US president, who had come under fire for his own ties to the sex offender, having been friends with Epstein before the pair fell out in 2004, before Epstein’s conviction. The documents are expected to be released within 30 days, on or about 19 December.
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Clinton Mora is a reporter for Trending Insurance News. He has previously worked for the Forbes. As a contributor to Trending Insurance News, Clinton covers emerging a wide range of property and casualty insurance related stories.