The New York Times reports:

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee issued a report on Thursday calling for an investigation into whether JPMorgan Chase deliberately underreported more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.

The report from the senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, said the compliance failures by the nation’s largest bank during its nearly 15-year relationship with Mr. Epstein were “alarming” and impeded law enforcement’s ability to examine the “financial infrastructure that enabled Epstein’s cross-border sex trafficking organization.”

The report, based on recently unsealed court records that shed more light on JPMorgan’s financial dealings with Mr. Epstein, focuses on suspicious activity reports, or SARs, which banks are required to file with the Treasury Department when they suspect a financial transaction may be involved in an illicit activity such as money laundering, terrorism or sex trafficking.

The report said JPMorgan filed suspicious activity reports covering $4.3 million in transactions by Mr. Epstein from 2002 to 2016. But it waited until after Mr. Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019 and subsequent death to file reports that described some $1.3 billion in transactions as suspicious.

Internal bank emails suggest JPMorgan may have waited to file those reports because it wanted “to continue working with Epstein” as a source of referrals for business even after firing him as a client in 2013, the report found.

Mr. Wyden, in a statement, said it was “clear that JPMorgan Chase ought to face criminal investigation for the way it enabled Epstein’s horrific crimes.” The report said both Congress and the Justice Department should investigate the bank. [Continue reading…]