Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / How Jeffrey Epstein Allegedly Used Elite Financial Services to Move Women (5/14/26)

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How Jeffrey Epstein Allegedly Used Elite Financial Services to Move Women (5/14/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Epstein Chronicles. The criminal empire that was being run by
• 0:07
  Jeffrey Epstein had a lot of armor and a lot
• 0:10
  of protection, and of course that's how he was able
• 0:13
  to do what he did for so long. But that
• 0:15
  suit of armor that they wrapped themselves in has a
• 0:18
  weak spot, and that week spot has to do with
• 0:22
  the finances. And that's because, unlike witnesses, the money trail
• 0:26
  never forgets and when it comes to Epstein and what
• 0:29
  Epstein was up to, that's one of the areas that
• 0:31
  was never really explored, which is crazy to think about
• 0:34
  considering just how much this guy was involved in clandestine
• 0:39
  business dealings. And look, it's not like the DJ didn't know.
• 0:43
  They had all the information we had. Plus more so,
• 0:47
  when the DJ acts like they didn't have the information
• 0:49
  or they had no idea what Epstein was up to
• 0:51
  or what Epstein was, they're lying. But besides the DOJ,
• 0:58
  I think the biggest corporate in this whole thing is
• 1:01
  the financial sector, because without the financial sector, there's no
• 1:05
  widespread human trafficking operation. You have to have a bank
• 1:09
  that's willing to play ball, right and when it comes
• 1:13
  to Jeffrey Epstein, he had plenty of banks and other
• 1:16
  financial institutions that were willing to do just that. And
• 1:20
  one of those companies, one of those financial institutions that
• 1:24
  was utilized by Jeffrey Epstein was none other than American Express.
• 1:30
  Today's article was originally published in Bloomberg, but we're taking
• 1:34
  a look at it at WA today dot com headline
• 1:39
  Epstein's black amex how he secretly moved women around with
• 1:43
  invite only credit cards. This article was authored by Max Abelson,
• 1:47
  Peter Guest, and Jeff cow Jeffrey Epstein's office set a
• 1:52
  rule for its special team inside American Express. Spending on
• 1:56
  trips for young women and others had to be kept
• 1:59
  a secret, even from his inner circle, so people at
• 2:03
  American Express were playing ball. Keep that in mind and
• 2:08
  then ask yourself how this is not a Rico case.
• 2:12
  I'll tell you what. Epstein's lucky his last name didn't
• 2:15
  end in a vowel, because if he was Italian, he
• 2:18
  would have ended up underneath the prison. I mean, this
• 2:21
  case was made for Rico after a flight confirmation went
• 2:25
  out to multiple people in twenty seventeen, Epstein's longtime assistant
• 2:30
  Leslie Groff, who was not accused of any wrongdoing. Really okay,
• 2:35
  send a message to the relationship manager for his invite
• 2:38
  only black card officially known as Centurion, please help take
• 2:42
  all email addresses out of our account so the survivor
• 2:47
  should sue American Express. Pretty simple. Every single institution that
• 2:52
  played a part that enabled Jeffrey Epstein, with provable evidence
• 2:57
  backing that up, should be held accountab just like JP
• 3:01
  Morgan was, just like Deutsche Bank was, and just like
• 3:05
  Bank of America was. Without these banks, Epstein cannot do
• 3:09
  what he did. And that's not speculation. That's not me
• 3:13
  thinking that that's the case. That's the case. She explained
• 3:18
  that Jeffrey was livid because he's extremely private and doesn't
• 3:22
  want any flight confirmation sent out to anyone but me.
• 3:25
  That's not true. He wanted to make sure everything was
• 3:28
  locked in. He wanted to make sure everything was hidden,
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  and in order for that to happen, he had to
• 3:34
  limit the amount of prying eyes that were looking at
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  these you know itineraries. And the fact that American Express
• 3:40
  would play ball with them, it just tells you everything
• 3:43
  you need to know. Do you think American Express would
• 3:45
  do the same for you. For years, Epstein's office relied
• 3:49
  on American Express to arrange trips not just for the
• 3:52
  disgraced financier who pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution,
• 3:57
  but for dozens of women, often Eastern European. His Centurion
• 4:02
  relationship manager also booked and canceled trips that were never
• 4:06
  meant to be taken, a move aimed at helping the
• 4:08
  women obtain visas. According to emails released by the Department
• 4:12
  of Justice, just right here alone, we have two predicates
• 4:16
  of rico immigration fraud, wire fraud, and I'm sure a
• 4:21
  prosecutor out there could get way more creative and hit
• 4:24
  them with a bunch of other crimes as well. The
• 4:28
  documents offer a window into the uppermost tier of consumer finance,
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  where the wealthiest clients are paired with dedicated handlers who
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  anticipate needs and handle an array of requests. In the
• 4:39
  Centurion program, reserved for American Express biggest spenders, relationship managers
• 4:44
  play highly personalized roles as travel agents, problem solvers, and
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  door openers and now co conspirators because that's what you are.
• 4:55
  Don't tell me you had no idea what was going on.
• 4:58
  They did they did it anyway, and why because Epstein
• 5:02
  had a bunch of money. And that's really what it
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  comes down to. When you chop away all the fat.
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  For Epstein, the discretion in service that came with the
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  card provided already made infrastructure for arranging travel for women.
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  More than one hundred of them have accused him of abuse,
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  and several have said they were flown by various means
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  to Epstein's properties in the US, Europe, and the Caribbean.
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  He was arrested on charges of sex trafficking in July
• 5:28
  of twenty nineteen and died in federal custody the next month. Well,
• 5:32
  at least they said died here, not killed himself. It
• 5:35
  always cracks me up when they're definitively sure that Epstein
• 5:38
  killed himself. I'd love to see that evidence. That was
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  more than a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty to sex
• 5:46
  offenses in a Florida state court in two thousand and eight.
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  In between, his money and connections bought some of the
• 5:52
  most luxurious help the financial system has to offer, sparing
• 5:56
  him from the struggles facing the millions of people who
• 5:59
  leave prison and jails each year. Well, look, Epstein was
• 6:04
  never gonna have money problems. The money that was on
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  the books that we know about, that was only a
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  portion of it. Do you really think a guy like
• 6:13
  Jeffrey Epstein didn't have money stashed in places that we
• 6:17
  have no idea about. Heimo certainly did. And as far
• 6:20
  as who has access to that stuff, I don't know.
• 6:23
  Somebody does. Somebody knows where it is. Along with an
• 6:28
  array of billionaires, lawyers, executives, advisors, and co conspirators, Epstein
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  used one of consumer capitalism's icons of exclusivity and excess
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  to keep his machine moving. The booking patterns and fake
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  itineraries are the kind of requests that should have raised
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  red flags, said two experts in human trafficking who asked
• 6:48
  not to be named discussing legally sensitive matters. Why wouldn't
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  they want to be named? That's so weird. You're not
• 6:56
  working for the company or whatever. Why don't you want
• 6:58
  your name out there? But that said, they're not wrong.
• 7:01
  It should have raised a bunch of red flags, and
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  it didn't. And the question is why who was ignoring it?
• 7:08
  Who was supposed to be monitoring it, who was supposed
• 7:10
  to be reporting it? And unfortunately we still don't have
• 7:13
  those answers, and in my opinion, that's by design. And
• 7:16
  American Express spokesperson said the company terminated Epstein's account after
• 7:21
  the federal charges against them and regrets having them as
• 7:24
  a customer. American Express strongly condemns abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking,
• 7:30
  the spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the company
• 7:33
  continuously updates its process and controls. We take our legal
• 7:38
  and regulatory responsibility seriously, including reporting and suspicious activity. Will
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  not seriously enough. If Epstein was able to do what
• 7:48
  he did for as long as he did, probably not
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  a great flex to talk about how your regulatory system
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  is so great. Seems to me that it's anything but. Epstein,
• 8:00
  a card holder since nineteen seventy seven, was a lucrative customer.
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  At times he spent at a clip of more than
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  one million per year, statement show, likely generating tens of
• 8:11
  thousands of dollars of fees for American Express. He had
• 8:14
  Centurion from at least two thousand four, according to the
• 8:17
  public files. By two thousand and six there were eight
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  Goal cards counting additional users, and a Platinum to go
• 8:24
  with it. His account was up to three centurions in
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  twenty twelve, and as many as nine in two thousand seventeen.
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  A message to prosecutors from American Express after Epstein's arrest
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  in twenty nineteen tallied centurions, a Platinum golds, a blue
• 8:42
  cash card, and business cards including Plumb and Gold. One
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  of his accounts Centurion cards was in the name of
• 8:50
  Selina Dubin, the daughter of his billionaire friend Glenn and
• 8:53
  Eva Anderson Dubin. According to a twenty eighteen statement that
• 8:57
  since been more fully redacted, Corinna Shuliac, Epstein's girlfriend, had
• 9:03
  a card with a sixty thousand dollars monthly spending limit.
• 9:06
  And remember, there is no allegations about Shuliac abusing anybody
• 9:10
  or anything like that. But I think she has a
• 9:13
  story to tell, and I think that what she does
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  know could be crucial. She's the last person that Epstein
• 9:20
  ever talked to allegedly on the phone, so we should
• 9:23
  probably hear from her, right, I mean, I would think
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  that Congress would want to hear what she has to say.
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  More than one hundred thousand of spending detailed on Epstein's
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  Centurion statement from June and December of twenty twelve ranges
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  from Quitodian to Decadent, a locksmith, plumbing supplies, cabs, chocolate,
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  movie tickets, match dot Com, Vivian Westwood, and the Ritzy
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  Manhattan restaurant per Se. In twenty eighteen, he had eleven
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  point two million reward points, even after giving a million
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  to an associate. The spending on Selena Dubin's card included flight, juice,
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  a cheese shop, a delivery, a fitness studio, and eleven
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  Madison Park Hampton's pop up. A representative for the Dubins
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  and a lawyer for Shuliac both declined to comment. Well,
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  that's not shocking. What do they have to gain by
• 10:15
  commenting at this point, right? That just opens the door
• 10:18
  for people to start asking more questions. And if you
• 10:21
  haven't figured it out yet, that's the last thing any
• 10:23
  of these people want. The main contact at American Express
• 10:28
  for Epstein's office was Natalia Malakova, a Centurion relationship manager
• 10:33
  from Russia. According to her email, she's based outside Atlanta
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  and had once worked out a visa agency in the city.
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  Messages to Malakova weren't returned. American Express to client to
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  comment or to say whether she was still employed by
• 10:49
  the company or if not when she left, well, I
• 10:52
  have a good idea hit these mforts with a Rico case.
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  More than a dozen American Express colleagues helped rank flights,
• 11:00
  zig zagging Moscow, Miami, Minsk, New York, Saint Petersburg, West
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  Palm Beach, Warsaw, and beyond. Groff was clear about who
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  was in charge. Jeffrey now like the girls to depart. Tuesday,
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  November twenty second evening she wrote about one trip for
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  another she requested an itinerary for girls with price tags,
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  whatever that means, and of course Jeffrey was in charge.
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  Talk about a slow served up pitch when it comes
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  to a Rico case and the government decides not to
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  jump on it, but sure, let's charge ditty with Rico.
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  The emails don't show Groff explaining why many of the
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  women were traveling, though in several cases she said they
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  were arranging trips to obtain visas. Groff declined to answer
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  questions for this story. Her lawyer said she never witnessed
• 11:53
  anything illegal. No, she just took part in logistics. She
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  just took part and bringing these girls to Jeffrey Epstein
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  like for real, that's like driving the getaway car after
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  a robbery and somebody gets murdered, and then you claim
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  you had nothing to do with it. Homie, you drove
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  the car. What are you even talking about right now?
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  Graf hask to arrange a fully refundable trip for an
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  Eastern European model just before Christmas of twenty twelve, telling
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  Malotkova to move fast so the woman could get an
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  itinerary for an interview with the consulate. Groff told her
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  to book anything for any hotel. We don't care how
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  much or what it's like, explaining that the model would
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  alter the day to yourself on the reservation to match
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  the air. She knows how to do it with word.
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  So this Malakova was working with them. She was their
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  inside source at American Express, and in my opinion, she
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  should be investigated and if there's crimes here, she should
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  be charged. Mulletkova had a question and an offer. Does
• 13:02
  she need the reservation only for the visa purpose? It's
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  against MX policy, to be honest, she wrote back, but
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  here is the option. We can hold it till tonight.
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  After the scheduled appointment, Groff told Malakova to cancel the trip.
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  She added, you have been great mala Kova, it appears,
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  was also willing to help. When Groff told her to
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  find a flight just for show from Rome to London
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  around the same time as another from Rome to Miami.
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  This is a decoy flight, Epstein's assistant told her in
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  January of twenty sixteen, she will not really take it,
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  but needs to show an itinerary for this flight. Malakava
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  sent her options. That March. When Shuley act told Groff
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  she needed a quick trip reservation to bring to a
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  visa appointment, Epstein's assistant simply forwarded the note to Malakova.
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  It became routine. In March of twenty eighteen, Malakova asked
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  if she could cancel flights booked for a Canadian visa.
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  So look, this lady was right in the middle of
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  all of it. This is immigration fraud, folks, right here
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  in real time. The question is what's going to be
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  done about it. Epstein's office also got help from more
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  than ten American Express support staff members, half a dozen
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  travel counselors, and a colleague named Kathy, whom Alakova considered great.
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  She helped with a flight that was reserved so one
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  woman could get her visa and another trip that Groff
• 14:27
  said was for the girls, though she clarified that one
• 14:31
  was over twenty five other co workers helped Epstein's office
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  book flights for women from Lithuania and Russia. According to
• 14:39
  public documents, Yeah, big time loan predator. Huh, one guy
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  doing all this stuff. Anybody who's saying that is a
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  liar and they shouldn't be listened to. All kinds of
• 14:50
  companies aimed to please important customers, Though holders of the
• 14:53
  Black Cart are welcomed into one of the most special
• 14:56
  clubs and finance once they make it, even if their
• 15:00
  lifestyles seem extraordinary, relationship managers are there to enable not questioned.
• 15:05
  According to one former American Express employee who asked not
• 15:08
  to be named speaking about internal company matters, it's not
• 15:12
  uncommon for Centurion card holders to use relationship managers as
• 15:16
  personal assistants. The person said. While relationship managers are trained
• 15:21
  on spotting risky or a legal behavior and to have
• 15:24
  an obligation to report suspicious activity, their job is to
• 15:28
  keep the client happy, the person said. For Epstein's office,
• 15:31
  privacy was paramount. Information on one trip went out further
• 15:35
  than it was supposed to. In early twenty sixteen. According
• 15:38
  to a note asking Molokova to investigate, her response could
• 15:42
  be a glitch, but that may a ticket for Epstein
• 15:45
  himself was sent around too widely. Please can you make
• 15:49
  it stop? Graft holder only send tickets to me. Malakova apologized,
• 15:54
  no problem, Groff answered, but sometimes I don't want all
• 15:58
  these people to know about ticket. It's on purchasing, so
• 16:01
  really good to get this fixed. Yeah, everything was secret.
• 16:05
  Everything was hidden, and that's because she knew it was illegal.
• 16:09
  I don't know how much more clear I need to be.
• 16:12
  It happened again in September. A year later, a flight
• 16:16
  confirmation for someone else made its way to Shulyac, triggering
• 16:19
  the police help message. One of the reasons for Groff's
• 16:22
  alarm was for upcoming travel. I'm petrified that all these
• 16:26
  tickets we have coming up this week from Russia to
• 16:29
  Paris will somehow resurface and get email to someone in
• 16:32
  our list of emails, she wrote. I know you understand
• 16:36
  this is truly a gigantic issue. Yeah, she understands, all right,
• 16:39
  because she's part of it. She understands because she's getting paid.
• 16:45
  Epstein was irritated, She told Molokova, who offered to ease
• 16:49
  his mood. We had sixty thousand points. We do value
• 16:52
  mister Epstein's business, Malakova wrote, Graf, and your hard work.
• 16:57
  The emails show a polite relationship between Epstein's office and
• 17:00
  Malakova or her American Express colleagues. The subjects range from
• 17:05
  oral surgery to kidney donation, coffee, the World Cup, dance competitions,
• 17:10
  and vacations in Russia and Disney World. I feel guilty
• 17:14
  when you have a complicated request and I'm not here,
• 17:17
  Malakova told Groff at the end of twenty fifteen. Oh,
• 17:21
  how cute. Isn't that nice? And you know what's so crazy?
• 17:25
  The FBI, the DOJ never investigated any of this. I
• 17:29
  wonder why. And when Graf asked in twenty seventeen for
• 17:37
  a ticket for Moscow to Paris, Malakova wished her a
• 17:41
  happy International Women's Day and taught her its history and
• 17:44
  that phrase equivalent in Russia. It came from Europe politically
• 17:48
  active women. So say your Russian girls essay at Marta,
• 17:52
  they will know. Graf thanked her, good to know and noted,
• 17:55
  I work with plenty of Russians. Yeah, traffic girls, women
• 17:59
  that have been stolen. Basically, arranging the itineraries often required
• 18:04
  long exchanges. In September of twenty eighteen, they worked to
• 18:08
  arrange a trip for a woman in Eastern Europe. After
• 18:11
  much back and forth, Graf asked if her office changed
• 18:14
  flights more than any of Malakhova's other clients. Yes, Malikova wrote,
• 18:19
  but you still are the best, most understanding and patient.
• 18:23
  I love you. Look this lady, she's part of the
• 18:26
  criminal enterprise. I'm sorry, but she is, and in my opinion,
• 18:30
  she should be investigated. Epstein remained a customer until his arrest.
• 18:36
  From March through June twenty nineteen, his account racked up
• 18:40
  more than two and a half million of spending, much
• 18:42
  of it for card connected to a business named for
• 18:45
  his private island. Five days after Epstein was taken into
• 18:48
  custody by federal agents, American Express Travels sent an itinerary
• 18:53
  to Shuliak for a business class flight from New York
• 18:56
  to Warsaw and then on to Minsk. Enjoy your trip,
• 19:00
  it said, folks. This is exactly what I've been telling
• 19:03
  you about the financial sector, and the fact that there's
• 19:06
  never been a real investigation into the financial side of
• 19:09
  this is just crazy, and with Senator Wyden trying to
• 19:13
  go after the money trail, I wonder if this is
• 19:15
  gonna pop up. So we'll keep an eye on this
• 19:18
  and we'll see what comes of it. But I think
• 19:19
  it really proves the point about what Epstein was up
• 19:22
  to and just how vast this network really was. And
• 19:26
  while the talk about a loan predator is nothing but nonsense.
• 19:30
  All the information that goes with this episode can be
• 19:32
  found in the description box.