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By 2011, Jeffrey Epstein was chafing at the restrictions governing his travel and other reporting requirements as a Tier 1 sex offender registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands, newly unsealed documents in the government’s lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase reveal.
The bank released Epstein’s correspondence with the V.I. Justice Department — where he was required to register and report his travels, among other obligations — late Tuesday after the court denied the V.I. government’s motion to designate the records as confidential.
JPMorgan contends that the documents are key to its affirmative defenses — essentially that the USVI was equally complicit in fostering a climate in which Epstein could commit his alleged human trafficking crimes, through lax enforcement of its sex offender laws, for example — and that the court should treat the government as it would a private civil litigant.
The USVI claims that is nonsense, and earlier on Tuesday released its own trove of newly unsealed exhibits alleging that JPMorgan’s top brass continued to court Epstein for his money and ties to some of the world’s wealthiest individuals and failed to alert authorities about suspicious cash transactions even as the bank’s compliance arm warned that he was a growing liability as a felon under investigation for sex crimes.
The V.I. Justice Department’s suit against JPMorgan, filed in December in Manhattan federal court, alleges it aided Epstein’s criminal schemes in violation of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The bank has denied wrongdoing and has called the suit a “masterclass in deflection.”
Jeffrey Epstein connected JPMorgan Chase’s executives with some of the world’s most high profile and wealthy individuals,” the V.I. Attorney General’s Office said in a statement following Tuesday’s filing. “The USVI’s complaint alleges that, in return for bringing valuable new clients into the bank, JPMorgan Chase, through its senior executives, including Mary Erdoes, ignored the evidence of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and traded victims’ public safety for its own profits.”
According to the government’s filing, Epstein offered JPMorgan access to such high-profile individuals as Prince Andrew of Great Britain, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, American billionaire and private equity investor Leon Black, former U.S. presidential adviser David Gergen, Israeli general and politician Ehud Barak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the children of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, Lord Peter Mandelson of the British government, the Agnelli family of Fiat Motor Company fame, and the ruling sheiks of Kuwait, Bahrain, Dubai, and the United Arab Emirates, among many others.
According to the summary — a 22-page bulleted list detailing emails between Epstein, Jes Staley, the former CEO of investment banking, Erdoes, the CEO of asset and wealth management, and occasionally others dating back to 2008 — Epstein was actively involved in the business of JPMorgan, particularly through Staley.
Staley consulted Epstein on everything from his compensation package and his dealings with the Federal Reserve, to the bank’s real estate portfolio and his promotion to CEO of investment banking in 2009, to asset acquisitions and JPMorgan’s forays into China, according to the exhibit.
In an October 2009 email, Epstein wrote to Staley, “feel free to call often, it is difficult for the quarterback to see the playing field. That’s why he calls up to the box.”
A few days later, he wrote to Staley, “my suggestion Your first Great move, should be a new CHina, initiative. first it was alternative investments now china. , you should have a dedicated china entity , with its own board of advisors, should include china politicos. they love to travel. you should be their link to treasury .. or you can issue credit default swaps, for their investment in us co , and you can ask the treasury to be the third party – just an example.”
Epstein went on to organize a tutorial for Staley on doing business in China, according to the summary, and wrote an extensive email laying out the steps for JPMorgan to expand its business in the country, “down to details surrounding the culture, office locations and suggestions for approaching government officials.”
Epstein also suggested Staley “might want to approach abu dhabi, and say as a key player in the world financial system, you will advise them for free. If and only if they decide to implement your advicei.e. sale of assets. thats how you will be compensated. just an idea.”
Epstein wrote to Staley, “The first most elegant deal that you can do. is to have China buy Dubai World Ports. They want turnkey, ops where they can then use their worldwide construction cos for building. would be a first great deal for the new ceo of the IB.”
The relationship extended to the U.S. Virgin Islands, which Staley appears to have visited with some frequency, including on his sailboat Bequia, according to the court filings. On Dec. 26, 2009, he wrote to Epstein, “Fun tonight. What do we do next?????” Epstein replied, “my car and driver ,, former dea armed. will pick you up in st thomas we have all the on field permits.. helicopter also available for a tour around , … remember I own the two big marinas.. yacht haven grand, in st thomas and the marina at red hook… you can use my atv’s jet ski gym etc. , i will organize the harbor at Norman island if you like, in the bvil . as well as lunch at guana.”
On Jan. 14, 2010, Staley wrote to Epstein, “Arrived at your harbor. Someday we’ll have to do this together.”
The documents—contained in legal filings on Tuesday as part of the U.S. Virgin Island’s lawsuit against JPMorgan—indicate Epstein connected Staley to a host of high-profile pals including Britain’s Prince Andrew and Dubai businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. He also invited him to meetings at Davos with Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, who was on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Epstein may have facilitated a get-together with JPMorgan bosses and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, too. In March 2011, one JPMorgan employee wrote to Staley and another high-level executive, “Against all odds, we have been granted a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu.” Staley forwarded the message to Epstein and wrote, “Thanks,” to which the convicted sex offender replied, “surprisee suprise.”
When Staley wrote to Epstein in August 2009 that he’d be in London, Epstein asked if he’d need anything while he was there. Staley replied, “Yep.” The same day, JPMorgan internal emails show, one of Epstein’s JPMorgan accounts wired $3,000 to a woman who “appears to be associated with a ballet company in Lithuania called Baltic Ballet.”
The same woman received $2,000 from Epstein in January 2009, around the time Staley said he'd visit the trafficker in Palm Beach, the documents reveal.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) has been fined $4 million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after about 47 million emails belonging to its retail banking group were mistakenly and permanently deleted.
The emails dated from Jan. 1 to April 23, 2018, and were deleted in June 2019 from about 8,700 mailboxes, including those belonging to as many as 7,500 employees who regularly worked with customers.
Many of the emails were business records that the largest U.S. bank was required under SEC rules to keep for three years.
The deletions occurred after JPMorgan's corporate compliance technology department, which had been trying unsuccessfully to delete some communications from the 1970s and 1980s, sought help from an outside vendor managing the bank's email storage.
JPMorgan, which is based in New York, did not admit or deny wrongdoing in agreeing to the civil settlement. It has adopted its own email coding procedures to avoid a recurrence.
Bitcoin, ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies were rocked last week by news the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, is delving further into the world of crypto.
Now, alongside BlackRock's near-$10 trillion in assets under management potentially being opened up to the bitcoin and crypto market, a survey by Laser Digital, the digital assets subsidiary of major banking giant Nomura, has revealed 96% 0f professional investors managing almost $5 trillion are keen to invest in crypto.
Our comprehensive study reveals that the majority of institutional investors surveyed saw a clear role for digital assets in the investment management landscape, and the benefits they can bring, such as greater diversification of portfolios," Laser Digital chief executive Jez Mohideen said in a statement reported by Coindesk.
We do see payments stablecoins as a form of money, and in all advanced economies, the ultimate source of credibility in money is the central bank,” Powell said. “We believe that it would be appropriate to have quite a robust federal role in what happens in stable coins going forward.”
Rumors suggest that Fidelity, the world’s third-largest asset manager with $4.24 trillion under management, may be considering either a buyout of Grayscale or an application for a Bitcoin spot ETF.
Parish also speculated that, with these potential moves and other recent events, BlackRock and Fidelity could dominate the U.S. digital asset space.
Stablecoin issuer and decentralized finance protocol MakerDAO bought another $700 million U.S. Treasurys, taking the total in its DAI stablecoin reserve to $1.2 billion, the platform said in a press release.
The purchase was the latest step in Maker’s strategy, encapsulated by founder Rune Christensen’s “Endgame Plan,” to diversify the assets backing the $4.5 billion dollar-pegged stablecoin by increasing the role of traditional financial assets such as government bonds in the reserve.
Moreover, the integration of Tether on Kava enhances cross-chain asset transfers, facilitating the seamless movement of assets between Kava and other blockchain networks.
The integration of Tether on Kava serves to strengthen the overall DeFi ecosystem by providing increased liquidity, interoperability, and access to stablecoin functionality.
At present, USDT is supported on various blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Tron, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, and Bitcoin via the Omni protocol.
Blockchain company Ripple said Thursday it received in-principle regulatory approval to operate in Singapore, in a rare moment of good news for the cryptocurrency industry globally as it faces tightening policy back home in the United States.
Ripple said that it was granted in-principle approval of a Major Payment Institution Licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country's central bank.
The license will allow Ripple to offer regulated digital payment token products and services and expand the cross-border transfers of XRP, a cryptocurrency the company is closely associated with, among its customers, which are banks and financial institutions.
Big banks and investors in Singapore are betting large on blockchain technology as a gateway to send money and trade assets more efficiently around the clock, even as the volatile cryptocurrency industry comes under intense scrutiny from regulators.
Some of the world's largest financial institutions, like JPMorgan Chase, Singapore's DBS Bank and Temasek Holdings, have joined forces with regulators in the Asian finance hub to develop a safer and more efficient way for businesses and investors to make deals.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has published a whitepaper that proposes conditions for the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), tokenized bank deposits and stablecoins.
The whitepaper was produced in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Banca d’Italia, and the Bank of Korea, and is currently paired with a pilot program that Amazon and several other corporate giants are participating in.
According to MAS, the whitepaper’s release was supported by software prototypes that aim to demonstrate a concept called Purpose Bound Money (PBM), which allows senders to “specify conditions, such as validity period and types of shops, when making transfers in digital money across different systems.”
“The PBM protocol is designed to work with different ledger technologies and forms of money. It enables users to access digital money using the wallet provider of their choice. With a common protocol, the same infrastructure can be used across multiple use cases. Stakeholders using different wallet providers can transfer digital assets to one another without the need for customization.”
According to the press release, the PBM whitepaper builds on MAS’ Project Orchid, which was launched as a multi-year exploratory initiative to examine possible design and technical aspects of a potential CBDC system in Singapore.
A collaborative effort between the Associazione Bancaria Italiana (ABI) and the Bank of Italy has brought together a group of banks in a pilot program for a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Referred to as Project Leonidas, this initiative involves 18 commercial banks leveraging blockchain technology. The primary objective is to explore blockchain applications that promote financial stability and protect consumers.
As part of this endeavor, commercial banks are utilizing a shared ledger for interbank payments, with a preference for private ledgers rather than publicly distributed ones. The aim is to streamline interbank queries and improve efficiency through daily reconciliations.
Proponents of Italy’s stance point to the “waterfall feature” present in the European Union‘s digital euro design. This feature automatically redistributes excess funds to relevant accounts, demonstrating its potential application in wholesale ledgers
Governor Villeroy de Galhau, the esteemed leader of the Bank of France, has underscored the critical importance of international cooperation like MiCA 2 in the regulation of crypto conglomerates. His remarks, delivered during a tech forum in Paris, shed light on the imperative need for collaborative efforts among nations to effectively address the challenges posed by these conglomerates.
The Indonesian cryptocurrency market received a massive boost recently when the government made a historic announcement: Ripple’s XRP, along with 500 other digital assets, has been granted official, legal trading status. This is a significant step, given that XRP and several other tokens are recognized as securities by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In one fell swoop, the nation has not only embraced a digital revolution but has also paved the way for an exciting era of crypto adoption. The amendment of trade regulations has ignited a spark in the crypto industry, with the government showing a clear intention to embrace the future of finance.
As Ripple’s XRP gains legitimacy, many believe it could become the next big thing in the world of digital payments. With this nod of approval, XRP might just be on the precipice of achieving new heights.
The explosive update from Indonesia is a signal to the world: the country is ready to take a leading role in the future of finance. With these new regulations, Indonesia is indeed on fire, and the world is eagerly watching this crypto boom unfold.
Mastercard has expanded its Engage program, which links potential card issuers with partners that can provide appropriate technical expertise, to help bring cryptocurrency card programs to market, allowing a growing cohort of crypto firms to leverage the credit card giant’s global network, according to a press release.
Mastercard Engage helps cut the time it takes to bring crypto cards to market and creates crypto-to-fiat conversion capabilities, Mastercard said. The system identifies and builds partnerships with companies that issue cards or are BIN [bank identification number] sponsors looking to launch a crypto card.
The expanded Mastercard Engage network will help empower players across the digital asset ecosystem and beyond to fulfill their ambitions at scale, paired with the safety and security that comes with the Mastercard brand,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president for blockchain and digital assets, said in a statement.
Despite plenty of regulatory action in the United States and an ongoing crypto winter, former TradFi executives, now in crypto, said there’s no desire to return to their old banking lives.
Lisa Wade, CEO of DigitalX, is one such executive, having pivoted to crypto in December 2021. She was once the head of innovation and sustainability at National Australia Bank (NAB), one of Australia’s Big Four banks.
It is becoming very obvious Web3 financial rails are the future — it is hard to innovate internally so those of us with a fire in our bellies are jumping ship.”
Wade holds the belief that crypto will witness widespread adoption in the coming years, stating that “like ESG, this will be mainstream in 10 years or sooner.”
Similarly, Guy Dickinson, the CEO of carbon trading platform BetaCarbon, moved away from a lucrative executive banking role in 2022 as the former treasurer of HSBC Australia.
“I moved into the Web3 space as the carbon credit and environmental markets space was not easily accessible and Web3 provided access to the market,” he said.
The banking industry is slowly dying. Constant layoffs and technological efficiencies render many professional service roles at risk. A senior banking official always has a target on his back in the current landscape.”
According to a Fortune report published in July 2022, two JPMorgan executives, Eric Wragge and Puja Samuel, resigned to pursue a career in the crypto industry.
Wragge, previously a managing director at JPMorgan, made the decision to join Algorand as its head of business development and capital markets.
Samuel, who served as head of ideation and digitalization at JPMorgan, took on the position as head of corporate development at Digital Currency Group.
The post-war international financial architecture is no longer sufficiently adapted to deal with the growing inequalities, climate change, biodiversity erosion and public health challenges prevalent in the 21st century,” the French Republic said in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES.
Amidst calls for a reform of global financial systems, France is taking the lead in promoting what it calls a new financial pact.
It says the system will be more responsive, just and inclusive. It will fight inequalities, finance the climate transition and biodiversity protection, and move closer to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The global financial system inherited from Bretton Woods has reached its limits at a time when we are facing two major threats to the future of our planet. The first is insufficient support for development and for the protection of our global public goods due to a lack of resources. The second, which is even more crucial, is the risk of geopolitical fragmentation, at a time when we need effective multilateralism and enhanced cooperation more than ever.
On 22 and 23 June 2023, France is organizing a Summit to meet the common challenges relating to our planet and development. The goal is to enhance cooperation among the international community in the face of the threefold challenge of poverty, climate change and the erosion of biodiversity by uniting as many partners as possible around a common roadmap, against a backdrop of international tensions. This is a crucial time for supporting and strengthening the effective multilateralism to which France and its partners are committed.
The On 22 and 23 June 2023, France is organizing a Summit to meet the common challenges relating to our planet and development. The goal is to enhance cooperation among the international community in the face of the threefold challenge of poverty, climate change and the erosion of biodiversity by uniting as many partners as possible around a common roadmap, against a backdrop of international tensions. This is a crucial time for supporting and strengthening the effective multilateralism to which France and its partners are committed.
KASH: "Durham stopped at the 50 yard line. We’ve got 50 more yards to go. . . Now we know the authority of a Congressional subpoena. Take every witness and co-conspirator that Durham failed to subpoena and subpoena them: Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Priestap, Fusion GPS, Charles Dolan, Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan. Congress can give them immunity and then they’ve gotta show up." @bannonwarroom @realkarlibonne
Rush was the CEO of OceanGate. He founded the Everett, Wash.-based company in 2009 with the aim to “access to the deep ocean through innovation.” He is believed to have piloted the lost Titan submersible.
Harding, a Dubai-based British businessman, was the chairman of Action Aviation, whose services include aircraft brokerage, aircraft management and aircraft financing, according to its website.
Nargeolet was a world-renowned Titanic expert who has completed more than 30 dives to the historic wreck. His photos of the ship reportedly inspired his friend James Cameron’s 1997 classic, “Titanic,” according to Reuters.
Shahzada was the vice-chairman of the Dawood Hercules Corp., a Pakistani investment and holding company. It’s part of the Dawood Group, a century-old family business, according to his profile on the SETI Institute, a California-based group that searches for extraterrestrial intelligence and of which he’s a board member.