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Which banks were identified in court records as handling Jeffrey Epstein's offshore accounts?
Executive summary
Court filings unsealed in late 2025 show Jeffrey Epstein maintained accounts at multiple major banks, with documents specifically naming Goldman Sachs and HSBC’s private bank in Switzerland as institutions tied to his accounts, and JPMorgan Chase identified as his longtime primary bank that filed Suspicious Activity Reports covering more than $1 billion in related transactions [1] [2]. Other reporting from the unsealed JPMorgan materials and related lawsuits mention links or transactions involving Alfa Bank, Sberbank, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank in broader inquiries, though the degree to which each bank “handled” Epstein’s offshore accounts varies by source and legal claim [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. What the newly unsealed court records explicitly say
The documents released from JPMorgan’s files list a Goldman Sachs account and three accounts at HSBC’s private bank in Switzerland tied to Jeffrey Epstein, and those specific bank names appear in a suspicious activity report that JPMorgan filed with U.S. authorities [1]. Reuters — citing the unsealed materials and court order to unseal — reports those bank names directly; Goldman publicly said it ended its client relationship with Epstein and moved his assets out of the firm in 2010 [1].
2. JPMorgan’s central role and its SARs
JPMorgan Chase emerges from the records as Epstein’s primary U.S. bank for years; the bank prepared a major suspicious activity report in 2019 that aggregated roughly 4,700 transactions totaling more than $1 billion that the bank flagged as potentially suspicious after Epstein’s 2019 death [2] [7]. Reporting in The New York Times and Reuters describes JPMorgan as both the source of the unsealed SAR materials and the institution that compiled and forwarded intelligence to regulators [2] [1].
3. Other banks and offshore ties mentioned in reporting
Beyond Goldman Sachs and HSBC, the unsealed materials and contemporaneous reporting name other financial institutions in connection with Epstein-related flows or accounts: CNN notes two accounts in the JPMorgan report linked to Russian banks Alfa Bank and Sberbank [3]. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) earlier traced Epstein’s offshore vehicles through the Paradise Papers, documenting his use of offshore service providers and shell companies — a separate line of reporting that shows how Epstein structured offshore holdings but does not, in these files, list the same set of correspondent banks as the JPMorgan SARs [6].
4. Lawsuits add allegations but not identical confirmations
Civil lawsuits filed in 2025 accuse other major U.S. banks — including Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon — of facilitating Epstein’s financial operations; those suits allege enabling services but do not uniformly show that those banks directly “handled” Epstein’s offshore accounts in the same way the JPMorgan SAR names Goldman and HSBC [4] [5]. Reuters reports both banks seeking to dismiss such claims and says the plaintiffs’ filings make different legal allegations than the factual accountings in the JPMorgan documents [5].
5. How to read “handled” vs. “linked”
The reporting distinguishes between banks that were Epstein’s direct account-holders and banks that appear in transaction chains, correspondent relationships, or civil suits alleging facilitation. The unsealed JPMorgan documents explicitly identify account relationships at Goldman Sachs and at HSBC’s Swiss private bank; JPMorgan itself functioned for years as his principal U.S. bank and compiled the SARs that flagged transfers through other institutions [1] [2]. Other named banks in reporting — Alfa Bank, Sberbank, Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank and others — appear in different contexts (transaction counterparties, civil complaints, prior regulatory probes) and are not uniformly described in the documents as custodians of Epstein’s offshore accounts [3] [4] [5] [6].
6. Competing viewpoints and limitations in the record
Journalistic outlets that obtained the unsealed files (Reuters, The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg) present consistent findings about JPMorgan’s SARs and the naming of Goldman and HSBC in that material [1] [2] [3]. Plaintiffs in lawsuits allege broader bank complicity, while banks named in suits have pushed back, seeking dismissal and denying direct customer relationships in some filings [5] [4]. Available sources do not mention every bank alleged in some commentary; therefore claims that any additional bank “handled” Epstein’s offshore accounts beyond those cited in the JPMorgan filings should be treated as unproven by the unsealed documents themselves [1] [2].
7. Bottom line for readers
The strongest, document-backed assertions from the newly unsealed files are that JPMorgan compiled SARs totaling more than $1 billion in flagged transactions, and that those files list a Goldman Sachs account and three HSBC Switzerland private-bank accounts connected to Epstein [2] [1]. Other banks appear across reporting, lawsuits and prior leaks (Paradise Papers), but the public court records released so far do not uniformly show each of those institutions as custodians of Epstein’s offshore accounts; they instead show a complex web of transactions, correspondent links and legal allegations that remain under litigation and investigation [6] [4].
If you want, I can extract direct quotes from the Reuters and New York Times pieces to show the precise language used in the filings and the banks’ responses [1] [2].