How Epstein built a global network that protected him

“The minister looked at his watch several times, so I took him aside and asked him to wait half an hour. But it was no use. No one came.” This is how Francis Scott Fitzgerald described the pitiful funeral of The Great Gatsby, a mysterious man known for his lavish parties and ill-gotten wealth in America during the Roaring Twenties, in 1925.

A century later, Jeffrey Epstein, the sex predator who died alone in prison in the summer of 2019 after hosting some of the world’s financial, political and cultural elite in a debauchery of sex and money, has something of a Gatsby. The recent release of thousands of new documents from the Epstein case has revealed a network of global proportions, with incalculable consequences: threats to the British government and the royal family, upheavals in Norway, the compromise of the International Olympic Committee and the downfall of former French Culture Minister Jacques Lange, with additional repercussions in Russia and the Gulf states.

The Gatsby comparison is not intended to justify the financier's sexual crimes and child abuse, but rather to try to explain how one man, born in 1953 to a modest Jewish family in Brooklyn, the son of a municipal gardener and a kindergarten worker, managed to weave such a web of influence, from New York's wealthy elite to the New England scientific community, through the global jet set, and all with a sense of impunity. Without these connections, the predator probably could not have operated for so long.

Epstein was a predator, first convicted in 2008 for pimping a minor, but also a gangster of sorts who made his fortune thanks to Leslie Wexner, the 88-year-old behind the global success of Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret. He was also a seducer, offering guests access to his business networks, political debates and lavish parties, as well as girls, "very young," according to numerous witnesses, to those who wanted it.

His crimes took place in four locations: a lavish mansion on New York's Upper East Side, just off Central Park; a Palm Beach, Florida, mansion, a billionaire's retreat next to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club; a ranch in the New Mexico highlands, in Santa Fe; and his private island in the Bahamas, a party destination where guests arrived by helicopter and where sex orgies took place in Epstein's secluded apartments. There was also his Boeing 727, nicknamed the "Lolita Express," which he made available to powerful people, including Bill Clinton, and which served as a place for sexual encounters, as well as his apartment on Avenue Foch in Paris.

“An exceptional manipulator and liar”

The Brooklyn boy, like his Queens contemporary Trump, understood that the path to social ascension led through the Manhattan elite. But while Trump remained for years an upstart, a real estate investor who went bankrupt with shady Atlantic City casinos, Epstein proved far more adept at charming the upper class.

Although he never graduated from college, the young man with a talent for mathematics managed to get a job at the ultra-prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan in 1974. In 1976, thanks to the parent of a student, he met Ace Greenberg, the head of the investment bank Bear Stearns (which would go bankrupt during the 2008 financial crisis), and got a job at that house. Epstein did not attend prestigious Ivy League universities, which, it turned out, did not bother him: Greenberg preferred those who were poor, intelligent and had a “deep desire to become rich,” the New York Times reported in an extensive investigation into Epstein’s social and financial rise, published on December 16, 2025.

The move proved crucial for Epstein, who had the foresight to start a relationship with the CEO’s daughter. However, the ambitious young man had lied on his resume, fabricating degrees from California. When management called him in for an interview, he confessed and went on the offensive: “I knew no one would give me a chance.” They gave him another. Epstein was forced out of the firm in 1981 for lending money to a friend in violation of federal rules, and Bear Stearns was under suspicion of insider trading at the time. “Epstein was less a financial genius than an extraordinary manipulator and liar,” wrote The New York Times.

Like the banker active in New York in the 1990s who was contacted by Le Monde, the New York daily did not accept conspiracy theories that Epstein worked for intelligence services or ran a lucrative blackmail network. Of course, nothing can be ruled out, and no one knows how Epstein used the confidential information he extracted from his contacts, such as British Labour politician Peter Mandelson. “A tireless con man, he abused expense accounts, made privileged deals and displayed an extraordinary gift for depriving seemingly sophisticated investors and businessmen of their money,” summarized the New York Times.

In the early 1980s, entrepreneur Michael Stroll entrusted him with $450.000 to invest in oil. The hapless investor was returned only $10.000. It was Epstein’s first offense to be reported by the Times. He then began an affair with a former Bear Stearns colleague, a former Miss Indianapolis, who introduced him to British arms dealer Douglas Lise. Impressed, Lise hired him as a consultant. Epstein made the most of it, flying Concorde extensively at his mentor’s expense, which ultimately led to their separation. During those years, the then-30-year-old made financial maneuvers and became a millionaire. He entered high society in 1987, becoming a member of the board of directors of the New York Academy of Art, founded by painter Andy Warhol, among others.

At that moment, while in Florida, Epstein had a crucial meeting that would transform him from a mere millionaire into a New York magnate: with Wexner, the man behind Victoria's Secret, who Epstein described as an "extremely loyal friend" endowed with "excellent judgment and unusually high standards." Wexner's inner circle was suspicious: "I feel something is wrong. I don't trust him," one of his advisors immediately warned. That didn't change anything. Epstein became the manager of the businessman's fortune. In 1991, he even received power of attorney over all of Wexner's businesses. During this period, Epstein became enormously wealthy. He took over his mentor's house in New York after Wexner returned to Ohio with his new wife. He also bought the company's Boeing 727 and, most importantly, one of the Virgin Islands, Little St. James, where he would later commit many of his crimes and secure favorable tax status for his activities.

Wexner was among those named by Epstein's main underage victim and accuser, Virginia Giuffre, who committed suicide in 2025. After Epstein's death, Wexner explained that he had cut ties with him in 2007, accusing him of "embezzling vast sums of my money." However, like Bear Stearns executives, he helped advance Epstein's career and introduced him to, among others, financier and art collector Leon Black, who would become one of his most valuable clients. Epstein's fees totaled $148 million. Today, Black faces an accusation from a victim that he raped her at Epstein's New York mansion when she was 16, which he denies.

Wexner, who in 1991 co-founded the Mega Group, a group of pro-Israel billionaires, opened the door to Epstein in Israel. In 1996, he invited Shimon Peres (1923-2016), the former Israeli prime minister, to a birthday party in Ohio. According to the New York Times, Peres flew there on Epstein's plane. During a social event in New York in 2003, Peres introduced Epstein to former Israeli Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak, with whom he would later form a long-term business relationship. Barak denied any wrongdoing.

Another crucial meeting marked the year 1990, this time with Gillian Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced media mogul Robert Maxwell. When her father died in 1991, Gillian, then 30, found herself under Epstein's wing. The two became a couple in 1992. The socialite introduced Epstein to the British elite and became his go-to person for recruiting underage girls. As of 2021, she is serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking minors.

Political connections

After money, art and sex, his focus shifted to political connections. Like any influential man on Wall Street, Epstein financed political leaders, most notably Senator George Mitchell of Maine, who was the Democratic majority leader from 1989 to 1995. The former congressman, now 92, was also accused by Giuffre. He denied the allegations. In February 1993, accompanied by Wexner, Epstein went to the White House and met with Clinton, to whom he donated $10.000 for the renovation of the White House. The two men became friends: Clinton used Epstein's plane, officially for the needs of his foundation, and according to Giuffre, he also visited his island accompanied by two young women, which the former US president denied.

Gradually, Epstein built connections around the world. Thanks to Maxwell, who met Queen Elizabeth II's second youngest son at Oxford, he became close to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, whom Giuffre has accused of sexual assault and, more recently, of passing confidential documents to Epstein.

Epstein also developed a relationship with Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and attorney who is now 87. Dershowitz, who was later accused by Giuffre, wrote a 1997 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calling for the removal of the crime of statutory rape for those over 16. He opened the doors for Epstein to Harvard’s elite, including economist Larry Summers, who would later become Clinton’s Treasury secretary and who retired from public life after revelations about his ties to a sexual predator. Epstein was generous to the university, donating $7,5 million since the 1990s. As recently as 2014, he was praised on Harvard’s website as one of the university’s largest donors to scholars.

Epstein then met David Rockefeller, the patriarch of the Rockefeller dynasty. Thanks to donations, in 1998 he became a member of the Trilateral Commission, an extremely exclusive international club founded by the powerful banker. Epstein thus gained access to the global elite.

Over the years, his network expanded to the United Kingdom, Israel and France. He tried to impose himself on world debates, to influence the powerful, although it was never clear what role he played: mediator, information dealer, blackmailer or member of high society? He flaunted himself between his island, New York, Florida and Saint-Tropez, always in the company of very young girls. Most of them were from northern Europe, like his ex-girlfriend Eva Anderson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden, a doctor and the wife of billionaire financier Glen Dubin, whom Giuffre accused of rape - a charge he denies.

Epstein's criminal activities were at their peak, but young girls drawn into a world that was too big for them often could not even recognize the people they were being "delivered to." Johanna Schoberg, a key victim in Epstein's circle, told the FBI that even if they had been known, she would not have had the slightest idea who they were. Through Maxwell, Epstein became close to Frenchman Jean-Luc Brunelle, founder of a fashion agency and in reality a middleman in the pimping of women, who divided his life between Florida, New York and Tel Aviv. Accused of raping minors, he hanged himself in 2022 in the Paris prison of La Sante.

Trump, a playboy known for his relationships with women and a New York real estate mogul in the 1990s, was photographed partying with Epstein at the time. In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, he said out loud what many have observed: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. He’s a great guy. He’s a lot of fun to be around. They even say he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are quite young.” Trump’s name appears several times in the latest documents released by the Justice Department. He used Epstein’s plane in the 1990s but claimed to have broken off relations with the sexual predator in 2004 over a real estate dispute. According to an FBI document from July 2025, one victim claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her but ultimately refused to cooperate with authorities. In a new investigation published on February 1 about the US president, the New York Times stated that the files “contain sensational and unverified claims, as well as documents that were already publicly available.”

A highly controversial agreement

A profile published in Vanity Fair in March 2003, long before Epstein’s first conviction in 2008, shows that everyone knew about his behavior. “There are always beautiful ladies around,” said Murray Gell-Mann, a regular at Epstein’s dinner parties, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969. At the same time, an anonymous guest expressed concern about the presence, on one evening, of numerous “young Russian models” in the company of Prince Andrew: “Some of the guests were appalled.” The high society who went on trips to Epstein’s island turned heads: “Many say there is something innocent, almost boyish about Jeffrey Epstein,” Vanity Fair wrote. In March 2006, Epstein hosted the cream of the scientific elite, including Stephen Hawking, on his island for discussions on gravity and cosmology. Alan Gat of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology noted that Epstein "was always accompanied by a group of three or four young women." Epstein's private quarters were separate from his guest quarters. But there is no doubt that not all guests did, saw or wanted to see the same thing.

Epstein’s June 2008 conviction in Florida for pimping a minor was supposed to spell the end of his career. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison under a plea agreement. He served 13 months, with permission to spend 12 hours a day in the office. However, the case remained largely confined to Florida. On July 1, 2008, the New York Times ran a headline in its business section: “Finance Man Begins Sentence in Prostitution Case.” The day before, the paper had written about “Jeffrey Epstein’s Second Headache,” referring to his financial dealings. In contrast, Le Monde found no such article in the Wall Street Journal archives.

The deal, which would later be heavily criticized and led to the resignation of former federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta as labor secretary during Trump’s first term in July 2019, abruptly ended an FBI investigation that had identified about 30 young victims. Authorities did not reopen the case until a decade later, after a Miami Herald investigation revealed that Epstein had avoided federal trial thanks to a plea deal. The paper exposed Giuffre’s ongoing allegations, which had been published in British tabloids since 2011, including a photo of him with Windsor.

Throughout the 2010s, Epstein continued to attract the world’s elite. The scandal only went global after his arrest and subsequent suicide in the summer of 2019. A few days after his detention, former Israeli Prime Minister Barak, who had come under scrutiny for his ties to the financier, said the revelations were “shocking.” “American society didn’t even despise him, so how could I have known?” Barak told The New York Times, explaining that he had met much of America’s high society at Epstein’s residence.

Among the celebrities who hung out with the sexual predator after his first stint in prison was Bill Gates. The latest revelations have proven disastrous for the Microsoft founder. In a draft email from 2013, Epstein laid out his grievances with Gates, who seemed to be trying to distance himself: “To make matters worse, you later tearfully begged me to delete emails about your sexually transmitted disease, your request to provide you with antibiotics to secretly give to Melinda, and a description of your penis,” Epstein wrote, adding in another message that for Gates it was about dealing with “the consequences of having sex with Russian girls.”

Since then, Gates, like many others, has continued to apologize, denying any wrongdoing. The release of Epstein's files has cast a shadow over everyone associated with him, although it is still often difficult to distinguish his possible accomplices from those who were simply unfortunate enough to cross his path.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a strong advocate for the release of documents targeting a number of wealthy East Coast Democrats, has also been linked to the case when it was revealed that he attempted to travel to Epstein's island in 2013.

“I never went to any of Epstein’s parties,” Musk defended himself on the X Network on January 31, before adding: “The acid test of justice is not releasing the files, but prosecuting those who committed heinous crimes with Epstein.”

So far, no new prosecutions have been initiated in the United States in this seemingly endless and sinister case.

Prepared by: NB