By News Editor 
One of the more unsettling revelations to emerge from the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of more than three million emails tied to Jeffrey Epstein is not merely the volume of correspondence, but what it reveals about the sophistication of financial infrastructure operating in proximity to criminality.
In scale and potential significance, the disclosure is on par with document dumps such as the Panama Papers. Yet amid the expected names, meetings, and logistical threads, a more quietly disturbing detail runs through the material: repeated evidence of financial tools and institutional market access embedded throughout the correspondence. This includes the apparent use of Bloomberg Terminals and functions, like ALLQ or SRCH, where there’s some semblance of compliance with logging and KYC checks on beneficiary parties.
Savvy Trader?
As part of his rebrand, around 2014 to 16, Epstein sought the help of Steve Bannon and a naive 90+ year old Noam Chomsky, who himself was in financial disrepair around the terms of his pension. During this PR push, Epstein wanted to be perceived as a hyper intelligent – albeit slightly deviant, but not criminally so – billionaire financier.
However, Epstein’s trading book seemed full of losses. And, a lack of familiarity with handling market volatility.
In January 2015, Brazilian bonds were getting wrecked amidst political turmoil and the perception on Emerging Market assets soured. Rather than outright shorting the transactions, Deutsche Bank appeared to want to nudge Epstein’s gaze towards Credit Default Swaps (protection against bond price drops).
In July 2015, Epstein’s fascination with Eugenics may have deluded him to conitnue trading in high risk biotech and pharma stocks. Deutsche Bank’s Vahe Stepanian emailed Epstein after Foundation Medicine’s earnings report, noting that the stock was down about 24% that day and reminding him that he was:
“currently long 49,830 FMI @ average of $25.3870/sh.” EFTA01203591
The Bloomberg screenshot in the email shows the stock trading around $22.14.
On a speculative note, these are the type of details around perception of markets and pricing that would incentivize someone to intervene in media and politics. Epstein is thought to have been seeking Brazilian citizenship at some point through Reinaldo Avila da Silva, husband of UK Lord, Peter Mandelson.
An unrealized loss in his position in AAVL (Avalanche Biotech in 2015, but now Adverum Biotechnologies) prompted Vahe Stepanian at Deustche Bank to reach out. The loss was around 295k at this time.
Then, another time, Epstein appeared saddled with PDVSA bonds that were stinkers. Like usual, Stepanian was moving information to and from his Bloomberg terminal.
Of course, there was some deference to Epstein. In a 2013 exchange, Tazia Smith forwarded a Bloomberg News article to Epstein and co. detailing Turkish bond and currency volatility. Here she was recommending capital allocation towards short term sovereign notes since Turkey’s market woes were likely to pass. This was not a trivial move; the total dollar value probably hovered around the neighborhood of several millions of US dollars moving to a single market.
However, most interestingly, Smith mentions that Epstein would be in an excellent position to know (‘better than most’) about topics like corruption and Turkish politics. Ultimately, this speaks to a deep interpersonal relationship between the individuals at Deutsche Bank and Epstein; they knew enough about Epstein to surmise his interest in current events, affairs and geopolitical finance events.
No matter the wins and losses, Epstein’s finances never seemed to be of concern. Even the losses or hiccups mentioned above were not enough to set back his expensive criminality. Still, the obvious question is where was Jeff getting his resupply of money? How was he managing the losses from a financial and governmental tax perspective? No answer appears to emerge in any of the leading coverage and the devices involved could provide clues.
The Bloomberg terminals didn’t simply run amok and provide information in a vacuum. They were used by Deutsche Bank analysts and financial planners who didn’t bother to perform basic compliance checks on Jeffrey Esptein, and actively sought his business. In one revealing exchange, Epstein appears to be literally ‘seeing’ the terminal from the vantage points of the analysts who served as a proxy for his intentions.
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Subject: Re: Fw: Gautam:EMEA FX Chartpack: high yielders vs. low yielders divergence [I]
From: jeffrey E. Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 06:42:53 -0400 To: Paul Morris a>
what are the trades? do you see it?
On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 12:20 PM, Paul Morris
a Not sure on the oil idea, he sent over other yesterday but seemed complicated and was planning to talk to him this am about it
—- Epstein referencing trades on the terminal.
Bloomberg Terminals are not casual devices. They are among the most powerful instruments in global finance: used to price assets, monitor markets in real time, model risk, execute strategies, and communicate through Bloomberg’s proprietary messaging system. They are designed for regulated professionals, not individuals engaged in criminal networks, allegedly.
And yet, within the Epstein-linked materials, financial language and market servicing appear not as occasional anomalies, but as routine.
Deutsche Bank and the Persistence of Client Service
Deustche Bank continued servicing Epstein until his 2019 arrest, despite mounting public reporting and institutional red flags. What is striking in the newly surfaced documents is the depth of that servicing. Epstein was a high touch client who was toxic everywhere else.
Epstein was treated as a conventional financial client, receiving the same sophisticated market services as legitimate institutional actors. This means there is likely logging for the sake of compliance, a historical archive of these trades, dates, names and beneficiaries.
The main thrust behind KYC (Know Your Customers) is that laundered ill gotten gains not fly right under the noses of regulators through legitimate actors, like Bloomberg LP, and their downstream clients, Deustche Bank.
Evidence May Exist
Ironically, this may also be the most hopeful part of the story. Unlike many forms of illicit finance that operate in informal channels, institutional trading services are heavily regulated and deeply logged. Modern financial institutions maintain extensive compliance records, including:
- KYC (Know Your Customer) documentation
- Transaction logs and trade confirmations – most queries are logged at BBG.
- Internal approvals and client servicing notes
- Communications archives, including chat and email
- Risk and compliance escalation records
If market servicing was conducted as part of routine “client relationship management”, which, under any serious KYC regime, should never have been allowed, then the corresponding activity is likely stored somewhere. In other words: there are likely Epstein trades somewhere in Bloomberg’s logs, which may have already documented this isntitutional failure.
A Moment for Accountability in Financial Services
There is a recurring pattern in the financial world: institutions claim surprise when criminality is revealed, even when the warning signs were visible for years. The Epstein case is now one of the most glaring examples of how high-status financial access can persist long after public legitimacy collapses.
If there is any moment for introspection in the world of financial services, it is now.
There have been too many missed opportunities for accountability and atonement in this space. But it is never too late to begin.
A Sample Of The Financial Services Epstein Engaged
The correspondence and related documents suggest Epstein may have interacted with sophisticated market services and products across multiple domains, including:
- Emerging Markets (EM) products and exposure
EFTA01451413.pdf - Foreign Exchange (FX) trading services
FMI US Historical Prices - Hedge fund positioning
Hedge Funds - High-level meetings
Regular Meetings
End Notes
We have focused on mundane, but sophisticated financial infrastructure that supported Epstein financially. Some documents show long positions where Epstein was simply getting smoked by the market, while others show proximity to finance that should not have been permitted.
In our view, if thefunds were likely ill gotten, then it appears the strategy was to only give the semblance of legitimacy for money laundering.
When tools like Bloomberg Terminals, regulated trading services, and institutional client coverage show up repeatedly in the orbit of a known predator, it forces an uncomfortable question: How many systems designed to protect markets and society are instead functioning as shields for the well-connected?