Jeffrey Epstein’s Mystery Bank Came Alive After His Death

After Jeffrey Epstein became a convicted sex offender, he closed his money management and pursued other business endeavors. The Virgin Island approved a license for him in 2014 to run one of the territory’s first international banking entities, a specialized bank that can do business only with offshore clients. Epstein was able to get a license because the Virgin Islands did not require a background check at the time of the application. The bank, Southern Country International, renewed its license for each of the next five years, but it is unclear whether it conducted any business, and a lawyer for Epstein in 2018 said it had yet to commence operations. 

But after Mr. Epstein’s death, his estate transferred more than $12 million to Southern Country, according to court documents. A magistrate judge in the Virgin Island, Carolyn Hermon-Purcell, questioned the estate’s lawyers about the transfers to Southern Country, saying the disclosure was not satisfactory. She requested that the lawyers provided a fuller accounting.

Records filed by the estate indicate that Southern Country had $693,157 in assets when Mr. Epstein died in August. Then, in mid-December, the estate transferred $15.5 million to Southern Country in two checks. Southern Country sent back $2.6 million, leaving the total it received at $12.9 million, and the documents filed by the estate do not give a reason for the transfers. But the estate did say that it does not intend to renew the bank’s license.

See Matthew Goldstein and Steve Eder, Jeffrey Epstein’s Mystery Bank Came Alive After His Death, New York Times, February 4, 2020.

Special thanks to Lewis Saret (Attorney, Washington, D.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.