Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, is seeking more answers from BNY in relation to bank accounts tied to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender.
Many of Epstein’s wire transfers showed a pattern and structure indicative of money laundering, Wyden asserted in a letter Wednesday to BNY CEO Robin Vince. The bank, however, failed to flag the transactions to the Treasury Department until 2019, the year Epstein died in prison, Wyden said.
The senator listed 18 wire transfers of $1 million each, sent in 2007 from Epstein-linked BNY accounts to his accounts at JPMorgan Chase.
“Did BNY Mellon employees inquire about the purpose of these transactions or conduct any enhanced due diligence?” Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, asked in the letter, among several questions to which he wants answers by Feb. 6.
Committee investigators found a 2019 filing in which BNY disclosed that Epstein had moved $378 million in and out of BNY accounts through 270 wire transfers but that the bank had failed to identify their purpose, Wyden noted.
“By waiting years to report Epstein’s suspicious transactions to U.S. regulators,” BNY may have broken the law, Wyden said.
“BNY’s failure to contemporaneously report Epstein’s suspicious activity to federal law enforcement may have enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crimes and allowed the abuse of women and girls to continue for years,” Wyden said. “Epstein was moving enormous sums of money around the globe to traffic women and girls, and BNY was well positioned to blow the whistle.”
In a statement Wednesday, BNY said it “recognize[s] and appreciate[s] the focus on accountability for those acts.”
“As we have made clear, Jeffrey Epstein was never a direct client of BNY, and we will continue to defend ourselves against these meritless allegations,” the bank said.
The $378 million in transactions surfaced as a focus of class-action lawsuits filed in October against BNY and Bank of America by alleged Epstein victims.
But Wyden has been following the money in the Epstein case for much longer.
“I’m into year four of this … investigation, and among my core takeaways is that there is a pervasive culture of lawlessness on Wall Street as these banks turn a blind eye to the criminal activities of billionaires like Jeffrey Epstein,” Wyden said in a statement Wednesday. “For banks to withhold [suspicious activity] reports until a suspect like Jeffrey Epstein is already behind bars is an impediment to our criminal justice system.”
Wyden on Wednesday pushed for criminal investigations into the institutions that banked or potentially enabled Epstein, and sought probes into individual bankers, as well.
“If the Trump administration wasn’t running a full-on pedophile protection program, these investigations would already be underway,” Wyden said.
The senator asked BNY on Wednesday to provide the names of relationship managers – and their direct supervisors – who oversaw Epstein-linked accounts.
Wyden also sought copies of any know-your-customer and customer due diligence profiles BNY prepared in relation to Epstein between 2003 and 2019. Further, the senator asked the bank to list all cash withdrawals of more than $10,000 made from Epstein-linked accounts at BNY between 2001 and 2019, as well as the stated purpose of each transaction. He also asked the bank whether any BNY executives had been subject to internal investigations over their management of Epstein-linked accounts.
Earlier this week, Bank of America pushed back against the class action, saying alleged Epstein victims were “given a second bite at the apple.”
The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint this month, which BofA said “doubl[es] the number of allegations” but “adds nothing of substance.”
“Plaintiff must allege conduct by Bank of America that satisfies the elements” of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the bank wrote in its own filing Monday. “The Amended Complaint falls short.”
BNY and BofA are not the only banks that landed in hot water over Epstein connections. JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank each agreed in 2023 to pay multimillion-dollar settlements to alleged Epstein victims.
