Virgin Islands sues JPMorgan for facilitating Epstein’s sex-trafficking

The US Virgin Islands is suing JPMorgan Chase & Co. for “turning a blind eye” to former client Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking on his private island there.

USVI Attorney General Denise George said her suit filed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court was part of an “ongoing effort” to hold accountable those who facilitated Epstein’s activities. Epstein brought many of his victims to his villa on Little St James, the private island he owned.

“Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the USVI complaint states.

JPMorgan declined to comment.

According to the suit, JPMorgan concealed “wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude” of women and girls in the Virgin Islands. George also claims JPMorgan’s willingness to do business with Epstein unfairly enriched it at the expense of other banks.

Class actions

The suit is seeking unspecified damages for violating sex-trafficking, bank-secrecy and consumer laws.

George’s suit makes similar claims to proposed class actions filed last month by Epstein victims against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank. A JPMorgan spokesman declined to comment on that suit, while a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said the case “lacks merit.”

Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in 2019, after being arrested and charged with sex-trafficking by Manhattan federal prosecutors. His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of similar charges last December. During her trial, a JPMorgan banker testified that Epstein wired her $US31 million, money prosecutors characterised as Maxwell’s payment for procuring young girls for the financier.