Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, is pressing for a full investigation into JPMorgan Chase over its alleged failure to report more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions tied to Jeffrey Epstein.
Wyden released a report Thursday alleging that JPMorgan did not file suspicious activity reports, or SARs, on $1.3 billion in Epstein-linked transactions until after his 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges.
He is urging investigators to determine whether the delay was deliberate, calling the issue "crucial."
Wyden said it was "alarming" that from 2002 to 2016 JPMorgan flagged only $4.3 million in Epstein-related transactions in a small number of SARs. After Epstein's 2019 arrest, however, the bank suddenly reported 5,000 wire transfers totaling $1.3 billion as suspicious.
"In other words, the cumulative dollar value of the suspicious transactions the bank reported after Epstein's death in federal custody was nearly 300 times greater than the value of the transactions it flagged while he was alive and actively trafficking women and girls," Wyden wrote.
"A compliance failure of this scale is alarming. JPMC's underreporting of SARs impeded law enforcement's visibility into the financial infrastructure that enabled Epstein's cross-border sex trafficking organization."
Wyden's report was based on recently unsealed court records.
Internal bank emails indicate JPMorgan may have delayed filing the reports because it wanted "to continue working with Epstein" as a source of business referrals, even after dropping him as a client in 2013, the report said.
Wyden wrote in his report, "Jeffrey Epstein was one of JPMC's single largest clients and part of an elite group referred to as JPMC's 'Wall of Cash.'
"It appears that top JPMC executives viewed Epstein as an essential client and eagerly continued to pursue new business with Epstein even after he pleaded guilty to state charges related to sex crimes involving underaged girls in 2008," the report said.
"When you go through the evidence laid out in our report, it's clear that JPMC should face criminal investigation for the way it enabled Epstein's horrific crimes," Wyden wrote in a post on X.
JPMorgan last week pushed back after President Donald Trump asked the Justice Department to investigate the bank, asserting that federal authorities possessed "damning information" about Epstein that was never shared with the bank.
"The second the government finally made public the sex trafficking details in 2019 — information they clearly had for years — we identified for law enforcement a range of Epstein's past transactions intended to assist with the investigation," JPMorgan spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said in a statement last week.
Wyden disputes that account.
"It is crucial that Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice investigate whether the bank deliberately withheld information from the Treasury Department in apparent violation of the Bank Secrecy Act," he wrote.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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