Real hedge-fund managers wonder whether Epstein’s real business was blackmail
[T]he hedge-fund managers we spoke to leaned toward the theory that [Jeffrey] Epstein was running a blackmail scheme under the cover of a hedge fund.
How such a scheme could hypothetically work has been laid out in detail in a thread on the anonymous Twitter feed of @quantian1. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but in summary it is a rough blueprint for how a devious aspiring hedge-fund manager could blackmail rich people into investing with him without raising too many flags.
Kass and former hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson both emailed the thread around in investing circles and both quickly discovered that their colleagues found it quite convincing. “This actually sounds very plausible,” Tilson wrote in an email forwarding the thread to others.
“He somehow cajoled these guys to invest,” says Kass, speaking of hypothetical blackmailed investors who gave Epstein their money to invest, but managed to keep their names private.
The fact that Epstein’s fund is offshore in a tax haven — it is based in the U.S. Virgin Islands — and has a secret client list both add credence to the blackmail theory. [Continue reading…]
Jeffrey Epstein, the financier facing sex-trafficking charges in New York, tried to influence possible witnesses against him, prosecutors said on Friday, wiring $350,000 to two people who might testify against him at trial.
Mr. Epstein sent the money to the potential witnesses in late November and early December, 2018, shortly after the Miami Herald began publishing an investigative report about a secret deal he had reached with the authorities in Florida to avoid federal prosecution, prosecutors said.
The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan made the new allegations in a court filing asking that Mr. Epstein be denied bail while he awaits trial, saying the payments were evidence that he might try to influence witnesses if he were not detained. [Continue reading…]