'A wrecking ball': Epstein’s destructive wealth has still gone unexplained

Years after the death of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein nobody really knows where he got his $600 million in wealth, reports the Guardian.

“Newly unearthed emails last week shone light on Epstein’s role as freelance client development officer, acting as a channel between political figures and business titans, greasing up the former with lifestyles they could not afford and the latter with avenues of political influence,” reports the Guardian. “Exposure of that channel ended the career of Peter Mandelson, the UK ambassador to the U.S., … after emails showed that Lord Mandelson had steered a $1 billion banking deal Epstein’s way and expressed sympathy for Epstein’s 2008 conviction for child sexual procurement.”

“Jeffrey was a starf——,” an acquaintance told the Guardian last week. “Anyone he thought had influence he would try to add to his collection. Mandelson is slippery, and impressed by money, so Jeffrey liked that.”

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But while Epstein’s pariah network continues to destroy the things it touched, the Guardian reports it was not the source of his tremendous wealth. His collection of lavish homes, two private Caribbean islands, two jets and a helicopter, suggest Epstein held nearly $380m in cash and investments, according to his estate.

And the wealth arrived suddenly. The Guardian reports until the end of the 90s, Epstein was living in a two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side close to the river.

Epstein collected at least $490 million in fees from Victoria’s Secret founder Les Wexner and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black, according to financial statements obtained by the New York Times. A 2023 report by the then Senate finance committee chair, Ron Wyden, found Black paid Epstein $170m “for purported tax and estate planning advice,” but Epstein was neither a licensed tax attorney nor a certified public accountant.

In the absence of information conspiracy theories abound that Epstein was blackmailing his wealthy connections, “snaring them in honeytraps that included models brought into the US,” including models supplied by Jean-Luc Brunel, founder of MC2 Model Management, “who – like Epstein – died in prison while awaiting trial on sex crimes charges.”

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But wherever the Epstein scandal goes next, and whomever else it topples, the Guardian reports Epstein moves “like a zombie through the upper echelons of wealth and politics.”

“He operated a circle with many points of entry,” the unnamed source tells the Guardian, “but now he’s like a wrecking ball rolling across countries.”

Read the Guardian report at this link.