JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) allegedly benefitted from more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions linked to financier Jeffrey Epstein, the US Virgin Islands (USVI) said in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, in a lawsuit against the bank.
The USVI accused JPMorgan of knowingly reaping rewards from Epstein’s wrongdoing and ignoring red flags.
“JPMorgan was a full-service bank for Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking,” USVI attorney Mimi Liu said.
Epstein was a client of JPMorgan from the late 1990s to 2013, after which the bank severed its relationship with him.
JPMorgan has denied allegations that it turned a blind eye to Epstein's activities and has said it reported to a federal regulator about 150 cash transactions related to Epstein between 2002 and 2013, Bloomberg reported.
Epstein owned two private islands in the USVI and was thought to have trafficked some of his victims there.
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail a month after his arrest on sex trafficking charges in mid-2019.
“The only reason that JPMorgan after 16 years reported the $1 billion in suspicious transactions was because he was arrested and then he was dead,” Liu added.
USVI is seeking at least $190 million in damages from JPMorgan.
Contact Sean at sean@proactiveinvestors.com