NEW/EXCLUSIVE: Deutsche Bank failed to promptly report to US authorities more than $250M in suspicious transactions…

NEW/EXCLUSIVE: Deutsche Bank failed to promptly report to US authorities more than $250M in suspicious transactions tied to Jeffrey Epstein, including funds used to pay women in Russia & other Eastern European countries, according to a new report from @RonWyden 🎁 🧵 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Bank of America didn't report millions dollars in suspicious Epstein-related transactions connected to billionaire Leon Black, including "two unusual wires" and other that did “not have a verifiable business purpose” and “no apparent economic, business or lawful purpose” until five to seven years after they took place, according to Wyden's 67-page report

These allegations, based on reviews of nonpublic records held by the Treasury Dept, are detailed in Wyden’s report, “Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.” The document describes the lawmaker’s multi-year investigation into Epstein’s financial network. Wyden’s office shared a copy of the report exclusively with @business

The report also says Wyden was interviewed about his investigation in March by then-60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi for a segment the news program was reporting about Wall Street banks’ and the US Virgin Islands government’s relationship with Epstein. Two months later, CBS News fired Alfonsi after she publicly criticized CBS News leadership and editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s editorial decisions involving a different segment she reported. Neither the Wyden interview nor the broader Epstein story has aired.

A spokesperson for CBS News confirmed that Alfonsi had interviewed Wyden for a potential segment in March, but said the full story did not come together for airing during the 60 Minutes season that concluded in May. The spokesperson would not comment on any plans for the program’s next season.

Wyden intends to introduce legislation that would impose tougher penalties on banks and individual bankers who fail to swiftly report suspicious activity involving high-risk clients, according to the report. His proposed bill would require greater accountability for wealth management executives, including annual certifications from senior bank officials that ultra-high-net-worth clients have undergone proper monitoring and “enhanced due diligence.”

Federal law requires banks to notify the Treasury’s financial-crime division within 60 days of detecting suspicious transactions, such as those that bear hallmarks of money laundering or financial crimes. Each of the three banks ultimately filed such notices — known as “suspicious activity reports,” or SARs — about Epstein, but most were filed only retroactively, after the disgraced financier was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in July 2019, the report notes. SARS are not, in and of themselves, evidence of any illegal behavior.

Wyden’s staff reviewed SARs showing that Deutsche Bank retroactively flagged $250 million in suspicious wire transfers flowing in and out of Epstein’s account after he was arrested on sex-trafficking charges in July 2019. One of the bank’s SARs identified 1,140 wire transfers between 2013 and 2019 totaling $147 million. (Deutsche Bank became Epstein’s bank after he was dropped by JPMorgan in 2013 — roughly five years after his initial guilty plea to child-prostitution charges in Florida.)

The Deutsche Bank transactions displayed multiple warning signs, according to the report, including extensive financial activity involving questionable modeling agencies; payments to women in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe; and settlements paid to potential trafficking victims.

“Investigations into the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein have thus uncovered an important finding that extends beyond Epstein himself: Wall Street banks have been willing to turn a blind eye to the suspicious transactions of ultra-wealthy clients, even if the failure to scrutinize and report these transactions runs directly afoul of federal law,” the report said.

In response to questions about the report, Deutsche Bank declined to comment. A spokesperson for Bank of America, said: “We take our legal and regulatory responsibilities seriously and, as we have previously said, the bank did not facilitate wrongdoing.” JPMorgan said in a statement that it began filing reports to regulators about suspicious transactions involving Epstein in 2002 — and augmented its filings “after the full scope of his crimes became public in 2019.” An attorney for Black called the report's assertions “outrageous and false.”