Investment giant Fidelity opened a brokerage account for Jeffrey Epstein months before his 2019 arrest, according to a document reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The account took in millions of dollars as Epstein publicly faced intense renewed scrutiny, according to the record.
The new details about Epstein’s finances, contained in data briefly published by the United States Justice Department and later removed, add Fidelity Investments, a firm with trillions of dollars in assets under management, to a list of financial institutions that moved large sums of money for Epstein.
Fidelity opened the account in mid-April 2019, and it received more than $5 million by the time Fidelity apparently moved to close it in late May of that year, several weeks before Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges, according to the document.
Debra LaPrevotte, a former FBI agent specializing in corruption and financial crime, said that the significant public developments relating to the Epstein case “should have been enough that Fidelity did not want Epstein as a client.”
In late 2018, a Miami Herald series that identified more than 60 alleged victims of the disgraced financier ignited new interest and outrage around the Epstein case. The following February, a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department’s involvement in a lenient plea deal with Epstein in 2008 had violated the law, and the department opened an inquiry into its handling of the case. In March of 2019, a group of more than a hundred lawmakers demanded the Justice Department reopen the investigation into Epstein.
Fidelity did not respond to requests for comment. The revelations come from a Fidelity record that the Justice Department briefly published in late January as a part of its congressionally mandated disclosure of Epstein case files. The Justice Department subsequently withdrew the file and replaced it with a fully blacked-out version, although ICIJ retained a copy of the originally released file. The Justice Department did not respond to questions on why it withdrew the document.
Fidelity is the world’s third-largest asset manager, overseeing more than $18 trillion across a range of services, including vast online brokerage and retirement accounts. Although the firm may be best known for its retail offerings, it also houses a private wealth practice that offers “concierge” services to clients able to invest multiple millions with the firm. These services include liaising with outside accountants and attorneys for wealthy clients.
Epstein’s Fidelity account was disclosed in a “suspicious activity report,” which financial firms are required to file with the U.S. Treasury Department. These reports can be triggered by a variety of factors and are generally considered highly confidential. Fidelity filed the SAR on July 19, 2019. The Fidelity account was registered in the name of Epstein’s Virgin Islands-based Southern Trust Company, a key money-moving vehicle for the financier. Fidelity listed Epstein and his then-accountant as individuals authorized to execute transactions.
The brokerage giant Charles Schwab, a Fidelity competitor, also opened accounts for Epstein’s companies in April 2019, according to Reuters, and oversaw the movement of more than $20 million. Schwab also filed a suspicious activity report after Epstein’s arrest. JPMorgan had financial dealings with Epstein for years before cutting formal ties with him around 2013. Deutsche Bank then took on Epstein as a client, reportedly moving large sums through his accounts until 2019. Victims of Epstein have secured settlements of $290 million from JPMorgan and of $75 million from Deutsche Bank.
According to the suspicious activity report, Epstein’s company opened a corporate account with Fidelity on April 12, 2019. This happened as Deutsche Bank was phasing him out as a client. The Fidelity record states that Epstein’s company used Deutsche Bank to wire the new brokerage account $5 million.
On May 30, 2019, Fidelity appears to have restricted the Epstein account to “closing transactions only.” The SAR does not indicate why the restriction was put in place. In the days that followed, the account sent several large wire transfers totaling $4.8 million to accounts at two Puerto Rican banks: Banco Popular de Puerto Rico and FirstBank Puerto Rico.
Those banks did not respond to requests for comment.
The account also contained two securities that were transferred to an account at the Connecticut-based trading firm Interactive Brokers three days before Epstein’s July 6 arrest, according to the Fidelity document. The suspicious activity report does not say how much those securities were worth. Interactive Brokers did not respond to a request for comment. By the time Fidelity filed the report to U.S. authorities in the days following Epstein’s arrest, the account appears to have been emptied.