December 2, 2025 • 25 mins
Jeffrey Epstein’s early financial career is cloaked in mystery, with only fragments of fact piercing through layers of rumor and myth. After leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, he founded Intercontinental Assets Group Inc., a consulting firm where he claimed to “recover stolen money for wealthy clients.” What exactly that meant was never made clear, but the business quickly drew speculation that Epstein was dealing in murky worlds where stolen wealth, corrupt regimes, and shady operators overlapped. In a 2025 DOJ interview, Ghislaine Maxwell went further, alleging that Epstein built his fortune partly by working with or for African warlords in the 1980s. She claimed he once even showed her a photo of himself with such figures, suggesting his reach extended into circles where violence and illicit wealth were the currency.
What is confirmed, however, is that Epstein was already operating in shadowy financial arenas, including his lucrative role as a consultant for Steven Hoffenberg’s Towers Financial Corporation, a Ponzi scheme where Epstein earned $25,000 a month and received a $2 million loan. The warlord connection remains unproven but symbolically aligns with the trajectory of a man who, from the start, was willing to skirt moral boundaries, exploit opaque systems, and surround himself with power—whether in Wall Street boardrooms or, allegedly, among those who carved fortunes out of bloodshed in Africa.
to contact me:
bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
source:
Records show Jeffrey Epstein’s requests for multiple passports, travels to Africa and Middle East - ABC News
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.
What is confirmed, however, is that Epstein was already operating in shadowy financial arenas, including his lucrative role as a consultant for Steven Hoffenberg’s Towers Financial Corporation, a Ponzi scheme where Epstein earned $25,000 a month and received a $2 million loan. The warlord connection remains unproven but symbolically aligns with the trajectory of a man who, from the start, was willing to skirt moral boundaries, exploit opaque systems, and surround himself with power—whether in Wall Street boardrooms or, allegedly, among those who carved fortunes out of bloodshed in Africa.
to contact me:
bobbycapucci@protonmail.com
source:
Records show Jeffrey Epstein’s requests for multiple passports, travels to Africa and Middle East - ABC News
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. Jeffrey Epstein's origin story has always been more
shadow than substance, a foggy patchwork of half truths, unverified claims,
and just enough documentation to keep those myths alive. After
walking out of bear Stearns in nineteen eighty one, he
(00:20):
launched Intercontinental Assets Group, Incorporated, a consulting firm with a
mission that was as vague as it was suspicious. Epstein
himself would later describe the work as recovering stolen money
for wealthy clients, a line that raised more questions than
it answered. Who were these wealthy clients, what kind of
stolen money were they trying to get back? And more importantly,
(00:42):
why would they trust an obscure ex options trader with
no law enforcement or investigative background to do it. Those
answers never came. What did come, however, were whispers that
this recovery business sometimes blurred the lines between legitimate asset
retrieval and working with people who moved in much darker worlds.
(01:03):
This period of Epstein's life is the canvas onto which
later allegations have been painted. One of the most striking
came in twenty twenty five, sharing a Department of Justice
interview with Glain Maxwell, where she claimed Epstein once boasted
of working with, or at least on, behalf of African warlords.
According to her, Epstein even showed her a photograph of
(01:23):
himself with such figures, using it as proof of his
reach and willingness to go where others would not. To Maxwell,
it was a way of illustrating that Epstein's fortune wasn't
built solely on Wall Street clients or high society benefactors.
It was born in places where human lives were expendable,
where diamonds, weapons, and blood money changed hands like currency.
(01:46):
The problem, like everything else when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein,
of course, is verification. And while everything Layne Maxwell says
should be taken with a grand assault, there is no
doubt whatsoever that Jeffrey Epstein was active in Africa and
was also involved with this gun running and arms trafficking.
This is what we talked about in a previous episode,
(02:08):
and I don't think there's any doubt that Jeffrey Epstein
was involved in the illegal arms trade or at the
very least finding money that was allegedly stolen or misappropriated
from these warlords and these dictators. Glenn Maxwell's claim is
one of the only first hand mentions of his alleged
ties to African warlords, and yet the allegation fits comfortably
(02:31):
well into the broader context of the eighties, when African
conflicts were rife with warlords, mercenaries, and Western intermediaries eager
to launder profits from stolen resources. We're talking about an
eraw where blood diamonds fueled militias were a cold war geopolitics,
armed despots, and where the recovery of wealth often meant
(02:51):
negotiating with killers. And this is the environment where Epstein
cut his teeth. While Maxwell's warlord story remains unproven, like
everything else she talked about, Epstein's financial movements in the
late eighties are well documented in another realm, his association
with Stephen Hoffenberg and the fraudulent Towers Financial Corporation. Hoffenberg,
(03:12):
who later went to prison for running a massive Ponzi scheme,
employed Epstein as a consultant, paying them an astonishing twenty
five GE's a month and extending them a two million
dollar loan. Together, they mounted ambitious corporate takeover attempts pan
am and Emery air Freight among them that ultimately collapsed.
Hoffenberg would later call Epstein the architect of his schemes,
(03:35):
though Epstein managed to slip away from any formal charges
when Tower's Financial imploded. Now, taken together, these threads paint
a picture that's hard to ignore. On one side, you
have the verified facts Epstein creating a consulting firm that
trafficked in murky asset recovery and his lucrative, high risk
maneuvers alongside Hoffenberg. On the other, you have Maxwell's allegations
(04:00):
that Epstein's early millions were seated by dealings with African warlords,
the type of figures who made fortunes by stripping nations
bear and leaving ruin behind. And given all we know
about Jeffrey Epstein, that suggestion resonates. Because Epstein's life was
defined by his proximity to power, financial, political, and criminal,
whether on Wall Street, in the boardrooms of Towers Financial,
(04:23):
or the alleged company of men who commanded armies of
child soldiers. Epstein's trajectory shows a man comfortable with leveraging
other people's misery for his own gain. From the very beginning,
Epstein lived in a world where moral boundaries dissolved and
where the company he kept, whether he confirmed partners like
Hoffenberg or alleged ones in Africa, was a reflection of
(04:45):
a man who knew how to thrive in the shadows.
Today's article is from ABC News, and the headline records
show Jeffrey Epstein's requests from multiple passports travel to Africa
and the Mid Least. This article was authored by James
Hill and Thomas Vahlschow. In June twenty eleven, the US
(05:08):
Department of State received an urgent request from an American
businessman who sought a second US passport for impending trips
to Europe and multiple African nations. I am frequently required
on extremely short notice to schedule international trips with itineraries
to multiple destinations, requiring me to obtain multiple visas at
(05:28):
the same time, which is simply not possible on such
short notice without a second passport, the letter said. The applicant,
who identified himself as the president of an international finance
consulting firm, said he had business trips scheduled in the
coming weeks to France, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Gabon. Now,
what do you think Jeffrey Epstein has to do in
(05:51):
a place like Sierra Leone or Mali or Gabon. You
think he has some kind of business dealings down there
that are legitimate. Where do you think he's going down
there to exploit people one way or the other, whether
it's financially or else wise. Please issue me a second
passport so I may have the three visas issued for
Africa while I am using my current passport in France,
(06:12):
he wrote, Now, who was in charge of the state department? Then, oh,
that's right, Hillary Clinton. The businessman's name Jeffrey Edward Epstein.
Three years earlier, Epstein had pleaded guilty in Florida to
solicitation of an underage girl, a felony that required him
to register as a sex offender for life. Unless we're
(06:34):
talking about New Mexico, then, of course, Jeffrey Epstein had
run on the roost, didn't have to register, no state
run investigation. Bro just did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted,
and nobody ever checked him. The letters found among several
passport applications and renewal forms submitted over three decades by Epstein,
(06:55):
who staggering wealth and proximity to power have long defied
ready explanation, and there's no doubt about that. Nobody can
explain how Jeffrey Epstein was able to weasel his way
in when it comes to all these powerful people. Wasn't
because he was a cool guy, wasn't because he had
great conversation, wasn't because he was extra smart. So that
(07:16):
leaves us with what was the offering? Well, we all
know what Jeffrey Epstein had on tap. More than fifty
pages from Epstein's files were obtained by ABC News in
a public records request to the State Department. The records
spanned from the early eighties, when Epstein was an unknown,
bushy haired broker from Brooklyn, to twenty nineteen, when his
(07:37):
indictment in New York for alleged sex trafficking of children
made him notorious worldwide. The documents revealed Epstein's pension for
reporting lost passports and his intentions to travel to far
flung destinations, including several countries Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Senegal that
have not appeared in other accounts of Epstein's travels. What
(07:59):
the fuck was he doing in Afghanistan? I mean, for real,
we're talking about a war torn country. I mean, he
was talking about these security risks, So what does he
need a passport to Afghanistan for? What are you doing
in Afghanistan? And who are you doing it for? Now?
If I had to make a wager, my guess is
that had something to do with Saudi Arabia. The earliest
(08:21):
application is from April nineteen eighty three, when Epstein sought
to replace a lost passport in time for an upcoming
trip to London. And barely legible handwriting, then thirty year
old Epstein lists his occupation as banker and his address
as an apartment on Manhattan's Upper east Side. The staple
color photograph depicts Epstein, who in later years favored loose
(08:41):
fitting track suits, in a crisp black suit and glossy tie.
In the mid eighties, Epstein was a college dropout who
taught math at an exclusive Manhattan private school and later
worked for five years as a self described financial strategist
on Wall Street. After an abrupt exit from bear Stearns,
he claimed to have launched a career as a self
employed investment advisor for the uber Rich. Epstein twice more
(09:06):
in the nineteen eighties, reported as US passport lost or
stolen once left behind in a London black taxi, and
once stolen out of his jacket pocket as he dined
at a restaurant. According to his explanations in the files,
literally never happened. Imagine believing that, oh yeah, Jeffrey Epstein
lost his passport or is it more likely that he
(09:28):
was looking to make a false passport, some kind of
doctored up one and needed a base to do that with.
So say you lost your passport, get another passport and
you still have the one you said you're lost, and
you can use it to you know, modify or whatever
and make fake documentation. And what Jeffrey Epstein's above that.
(09:49):
When I say that this is the smarmy son of
a bitch, I mean it. He was up to no
good in every aspect of his life. In an application
to replace his passport on February twenty, nineteen eighty five,
Epstein reported he was then residing in London. The address
he provided, which has not previously been associated with Epstein,
(10:09):
is in an area surrounded by foreign embassies. Oh, I
wonder why all of this is just a coincidence, folks.
Has nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein's ties to the
intelligence world, to the world of arms trafficking nothing at all.
In his affidavit of loss, Epstein indicated he had a
flight book the next day to Sweden. Less than a
(10:30):
week later, former Miss Sweden Eva Anderson was the host
of a televised musical contest in the country. Video of
the event on Earth by YouTube user Greenclown twenty twenty
one shows Epstein in the audience clapping half heartedly between
musical acts. Anderson would later testify in Glenn Maxwell's criminal
trial in twenty twenty one that she and Epstein dated
(10:54):
on and off in the nineteen eighties. And when you
go through all these articles and you go through all
the information, always a little golden nugget, right, And here
that golden nugget is the fact that Jeffrey Epstein's house
was basically in diplomat Row, not near the financial sector,
not near you know, any place where he's going to
be working, but next to the power base. I'm sure
(11:15):
that's all a coincidence, too, right, That wasn't by design.
Jeffrey Epstein would never ever set himself up like that.
I mean, it's no different than the lobbyists down on
K Street in DC. Same kind of shit, right. I mean,
if these are the people that you're trying to manipulate,
these are the people that you're trying to you know, coerce,
then yeah, you want to have access to them, and
(11:36):
what better way to do that than live directly in
the middle of all of them. Epstein's ninety three passport
application shows his hair graying and his fortunes improving. He
listed his address on East sixty ninth in New York
City was the former resident of the Iranian Ambassador, which
had been taken over by the State Department before Epstein
(11:57):
rented the property. The government later termed Epstein's lease after
he sub let the townhouse without permission and jacked up
the rent. Now that's the townhouse that Klaine Maxwell was
talking about in the transcripts that she ended up renting.
I guess it's just another coincidence in a long line
of Jeffrey Epstein related coincidences. All right, folks, we're gonna
(12:18):
wrap up episode one right here, and in the next episode,
we're gonna pick up where we left off. All of
the information that goes with this episode can be found
in the description box. What's up everyone, and welcome to
another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're
picking up where we left off with the article from
ABC News talking about Jeffrey Epstein and his passports and
(12:42):
his travels to Africa. This article was authored by James
Hill and Thomas vall Show. The records obtained by ABC
News also contained multiple instances in which Epstein applied for
a second passport in order to avoid conflict visa stamps
when traveling to Israel and certain Arab states including Jordan
(13:02):
and Saudi Arabia. That's so ridiculous. So that's the excuse
he was worried that a plane was gonna get hijacked.
I mean, it's a convenient excuse, but does it hold
water not for me, It doesn't. What it really is
is more cover for Jeffrey Epstein to engage in clandestine
type of behavior. And when he has access to all
these different passports and these visa stamps, it's easy for
(13:25):
him to come and go as he pleases. Right. Let's remember,
Jeffrey Epstein wasn't flying in on a twa flight. Bro
was coming in on his own plane, landing in private
air fields, and able to do pretty much whatever he wanted.
Wasn't like somebody's boarding his plane and checking what he
has and not for nothing, but how much cargo can
(13:47):
is seven twenty seven, seven forty seven hold a whole lot, right?
So who the fuck knows what Jeffrey Epstein had on
those planes? Even Epstein has long standing connections at who Barack,
a former Prime Minister of Israel. Barock publicly acknowledged visiting
Epstein more than ten but much less than one hundred times,
including one visit to Epstein's private estate in the US
(14:11):
Virgin Islands. He told The Daily Beast in twenty nineteen
that he never attended a party with Epstein and had
never met him in the company of women or girls,
which is a lie. We've seen the pictures and we
know that Ehud Barack is out here telling falsehoods. And
when I talk about epstein amnesia, people like Ehud Barack
(14:31):
are exactly who I'm talking about. Instead of just owning
up to the relationship that you obviously had, you try
and bullshit everybody and act like you weren't close, act
like you dudes weren't involved in, you know, a pretty
deep relationship. You were business partners, friends. The whole thing
a New York Times columnist reported in twenty nineteen that
(14:51):
Epstein had boasted without evidence of speaking often with Mohammed
bin Salmon, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Well, his
plane was in Saudi Arabia Riod the night before the
twenty sixteen election. So what was Jeffrey Epstein doing in Riod?
What's he ever doing there? Right? What's the connection? Well,
it goes all the way back to Kashogi, and Jeffrey
(15:15):
Epstein has been well situated within the kingdom ever since. Look,
the Saudi's understood that they had an asset, they understood
they had somebody that they could utilize. And like I've
said before, Jeffrey Epstein was a free agent. My guy
was out here looking to make some dough, looking to
get more influence, looking to collect more compromant, and if
(15:38):
that meant working for the Saudi royal family, so be it.
For both safety and business reasons, it's imperative that mister
Epstein have the necessary flexibility of a second passport, one
of his corporate representatives wrote in two thousand and three.
State Department policy permits certain frequent international travelers to carry
a second passport, particularly in cases where a visa state
(16:00):
from one country might prohibit entry into another, he had
no problems with that. Stop it. When you have his
kind of money, you really think one of these countries
is going to stop him from coming in. You really
think that some customs agent in Gaban or Malli or
wherever can't be paid off. That's how this dude operated. Remember,
(16:21):
like I was saying a second ago, he wasn't flying
into the local airport on some twa flight, you know,
bording on a delta flight in New York and then
flew over to Saudi Arabia. He's on his own plane.
And with that comes its own set of rules. And
of course that allowed Jeffrey Epstein to keep the nature
of his business, at least for a very long time, secret.
(16:43):
And one of the ways he was able to do
that is that he didn't have the same kind of
rules that the rest of us do when it comes
to international travel. The issue arose again two years later
when Epstein reported a scheduled trip to Israel and Afghanistan.
Talk about two wildly different places. Is what kind of
business do you have in Afghanistan? That's the question I've
(17:04):
had for a very long time, What is Jeffrey Epstein
doing in Afghanistan in the middle of a war? And
I don't think we have enough answers when it comes
to his behavior in Afghanistan and some of these other places.
And I think that was all by design, right, I mean,
when we're talking about a place like Afghanistan, there can
only be a few reasons for Epstein going there. And
(17:26):
if you take some of the things that we've talked
about previously and add them to this situation, it kind
of makes sense. Right. We know that Epstein was involved
with a lot of gun runners back in the day.
We know that he had a whole network set up
for his human trafficking. Could Epstein have been involved in
bringing weapons into Afghanistan in a clandestine nature? Very possible. Now, Look,
(17:49):
that is just speculation on my part, and I want
to make that clear. I don't have any evidence to
back that up besides the circumstantial evidence that we've compiled
throughout the years. But there's just no explanation for what
Epstein's doing in a place like Afghanistan in the middle
of a war. Especially he's worried about passport stamps, but
(18:09):
he's going to fly into Kabul. As part of the
request for an additional passport, Epstein submitted travel itineraries indicating
he had booked two first class trips in the spring
of two thousand and five. Two first class trips. Huh,
I don't think Jeffrey Epstein was ever on a passenger
plane a commercial passenger plane. This guy zero chance. Epstein
(18:35):
also provided details of a journey that would take them
on April seventh, two thousand and five, to Istanbul, where
he would connect through Baku, Iserbaijan to Kabul. The records
do not indicate whether he actually made the trip. On
Epstein's scheduled departure from Kable, the late former US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to the Afghan
(18:57):
capital for a joint press conference with Resident Amid Karzai.
There's no evidence that Rumsfeld and Epstein's visits were connected,
just another coincidence. Again, what was he doing there? Isn't
that the question everybody should be asking? Who was he
meeting with, Why was he there, who approved it, Where
did he land, who did he meet with, who was
(19:18):
at the tarmac waiting for him? You know, very basic questions,
But still all these years later and no answers. While
Epstein was apparently traveling in southern Asia, police officers in
southern Florida were hunting for evidence in trash cans outside
his Palm Beach mansion. Three weeks earlier, the parents of
a fourteen year old girl had reported to police that
(19:40):
their daughter had been molested by a white haired man
who went by the name Jeff. The police investigation that
followed would turn up dozens of alleged under age minor
victims and begin a saga that would ultimately lead to
Epstein's permanent status as a sex offender. For all the
good it did, he was still abusing girls all the
way up to a second arrest, but that designation would
(20:03):
have little impact on Epstein's ability to obtain a US
passport or to travel internationally until Congress passed the International
Megan's Law in twenty sixteen. Imagine being a molester, a
child molester, and able to just travel freely wherever you wanted, unchecked.
If you've been convicted of the crimes that Epstein was
convicted of, you should not be allowed to fly internationally.
(20:27):
That legislation allowed the government to revoke the passports of
sex offenders who must reapply for a special passport carrying
a notice inside that reads the bearer was convicted of
a sex offense against a minor and is a covered
sex offender. According to the State Department, It also strengthened
the requirement that registered sex offenders provide advanced notice for
(20:49):
all intended international travel. Well that's a good idea, I mean,
if you're going to let them travel. If it was
up to me, these scumbags would be underneath the prison,
not traveling internationally. Epstein's file indicate that a passport issued
to him in twenty sixteen and valid for ten years
was revoked. A second passport, valid until twenty twenty, was
(21:12):
also revoked. His final application in the State Department files
indicates his last US passport was issued in March of
twenty nineteen. ABC News has previously obtained records of the
United States Marshall Service that show the agency was looking
into Epstein's foreign trips. Investigation reveals Epstein travels internationally quite
(21:34):
frequently using private planes, and may also have failed to
report all of his international travel. January twenty nineteen, reports stated, well, yeah,
he doesn't want anyone knowing what he was doing. That
was the whole point, right, the whole entire clandestine nature
of Jeffrey Epstein's activity had to be protected by somebody
(21:54):
besides him. He couldn't do all this on his own.
Get these passports, get the visas. You know, all of
that was not done by Jeffrey Epstein just asking for it.
He pulled on levers and people helped them. And when
I talk about the Epstein files, I want to know
who was helping them, who signed off on all this stuff,
(22:16):
who was his contact, who was the person in charge,
because those people need to answer some questions. And furthermore,
those people that were involved in any way, we should
be checking in their financial statements how much money did
they get after dealing with Epstein, And after they were
dealing with them, did they engage in some kind of
criminal behavior. If so, they should be held accountable. So
(22:40):
for me, at least, that's what I mean when I'm
talking about the Epstein files. I want all of this
stuff that puts the pieces together, the things that tie
everything up. And until we get all of that stuff,
forget it, we're never going to have the truth. Six
months later, he was arrested at Teeterborough Airport, New Jersey
after his private Gulfstream jet down from Paris. A federal
(23:01):
indictment charged them with conspiracy and child sex trafficking. When
FBI agents executed a search warrant at Epstein's New York
home later that day, they found the lock safe that
contained forty eight loose diamonds and seventy thousand dollars in cash.
Also recovered were three US passports and one Austrian passport
(23:22):
with Epstein's picture but with someone else's name and an
address in Saudi Arabia. Unexplained, nobody has told us how
we got the Austrian passport. That's not normal. You shouldn't
just be able to go get a passport from a
foreign country unless, of course, somebody is greasing the wheels
for you, right, unless somebody's opening that door. So the
(23:43):
question is who opened the door for Epstein to get
that Austrian passport? Again, still not answered. Epstein's defense attorneys,
seeking to secure bill for their client, said that two
of the US passports were expired. The foreign passport, they claimed,
was given to Epstein by a friend and he had
never used it to travel. They argued he received it
(24:03):
in the eighties for personal protection when traveling in the
Middle East, so he received it in the eighties but
never used it. Yeah, okay, sure do people really believe this?
Anyone who believes this shit is crazy. Some Jewish Americans
were informally advised at the time to carry identification bearing
a non Jewish name when traveling internationally in case of hijacking.
(24:24):
His attorney said, that's bullshit too. Sorry, I don't believe
it for one single second. Convenient excuse, no doubt about it,
but true, I have my doubts, partly because of that
foreign passport and Epstein's history of international travel. A judge
determined Epstein was a flight risk and refused to grant Bell.
(24:45):
Three weeks later, Epstein was dead. His death was ruled
a suicide by hanging. And here's the kicker, folks, you're
ready for it. Following his death, the Martial Service investigation
into his travel was dropped. Well, isn't that convenient? Just
like the investigation into the CVR was dropped, Just like
the investigation into that the other thing was dropped. And
(25:06):
the reason that all these investigations stopped was because Jeffrey
Epstein died. If he didn't die in that jail cell
all these investigations would have been ongoing, all these rocks
would have been turned over, all these doors kicked in,
but instead, conveniently for them, all of that ended when
Epstein died. And isn't it ironic that all the coincidences
(25:27):
seem to favor the people who want Epstein gone? And
from my money, that might be the biggest coincidence of
them all. All of the information that goes with this
episode can be found in the description box.
What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. Jeffrey Epstein's origin story has always been more
shadow than substance, a foggy patchwork of half truths, unverified claims,
and just enough documentation to keep those myths alive. After
walking out of bear Stearns in nineteen eighty one, he
(00:20):
launched Intercontinental Assets Group, Incorporated, a consulting firm with a
mission that was as vague as it was suspicious. Epstein
himself would later describe the work as recovering stolen money
for wealthy clients, a line that raised more questions than
it answered. Who were these wealthy clients, what kind of
stolen money were they trying to get back? And more importantly,
(00:42):
why would they trust an obscure ex options trader with
no law enforcement or investigative background to do it. Those
answers never came. What did come, however, were whispers that
this recovery business sometimes blurred the lines between legitimate asset
retrieval and working with people who moved in much darker worlds.
(01:03):
This period of Epstein's life is the canvas onto which
later allegations have been painted. One of the most striking
came in twenty twenty five, sharing a Department of Justice
interview with Glain Maxwell, where she claimed Epstein once boasted
of working with, or at least on, behalf of African warlords.
According to her, Epstein even showed her a photograph of
(01:23):
himself with such figures, using it as proof of his
reach and willingness to go where others would not. To Maxwell,
it was a way of illustrating that Epstein's fortune wasn't
built solely on Wall Street clients or high society benefactors.
It was born in places where human lives were expendable,
where diamonds, weapons, and blood money changed hands like currency.
(01:46):
The problem, like everything else when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein,
of course, is verification. And while everything Layne Maxwell says
should be taken with a grand assault, there is no
doubt whatsoever that Jeffrey Epstein was active in Africa and
was also involved with this gun running and arms trafficking.
This is what we talked about in a previous episode,
(02:08):
and I don't think there's any doubt that Jeffrey Epstein
was involved in the illegal arms trade or at the
very least finding money that was allegedly stolen or misappropriated
from these warlords and these dictators. Glenn Maxwell's claim is
one of the only first hand mentions of his alleged
ties to African warlords, and yet the allegation fits comfortably
(02:31):
well into the broader context of the eighties, when African
conflicts were rife with warlords, mercenaries, and Western intermediaries eager
to launder profits from stolen resources. We're talking about an
eraw where blood diamonds fueled militias were a cold war geopolitics,
armed despots, and where the recovery of wealth often meant
(02:51):
negotiating with killers. And this is the environment where Epstein
cut his teeth. While Maxwell's warlord story remains unproven, like
everything else she talked about, Epstein's financial movements in the
late eighties are well documented in another realm, his association
with Stephen Hoffenberg and the fraudulent Towers Financial Corporation. Hoffenberg,
(03:12):
who later went to prison for running a massive Ponzi scheme,
employed Epstein as a consultant, paying them an astonishing twenty
five GE's a month and extending them a two million
dollar loan. Together, they mounted ambitious corporate takeover attempts pan
am and Emery air Freight among them that ultimately collapsed.
Hoffenberg would later call Epstein the architect of his schemes,
(03:35):
though Epstein managed to slip away from any formal charges
when Tower's Financial imploded. Now, taken together, these threads paint
a picture that's hard to ignore. On one side, you
have the verified facts Epstein creating a consulting firm that
trafficked in murky asset recovery and his lucrative, high risk
maneuvers alongside Hoffenberg. On the other, you have Maxwell's allegations
(04:00):
that Epstein's early millions were seated by dealings with African warlords,
the type of figures who made fortunes by stripping nations
bear and leaving ruin behind. And given all we know
about Jeffrey Epstein, that suggestion resonates. Because Epstein's life was
defined by his proximity to power, financial, political, and criminal,
whether on Wall Street, in the boardrooms of Towers Financial,
(04:23):
or the alleged company of men who commanded armies of
child soldiers. Epstein's trajectory shows a man comfortable with leveraging
other people's misery for his own gain. From the very beginning,
Epstein lived in a world where moral boundaries dissolved and
where the company he kept, whether he confirmed partners like
Hoffenberg or alleged ones in Africa, was a reflection of
(04:45):
a man who knew how to thrive in the shadows.
Today's article is from ABC News, and the headline records
show Jeffrey Epstein's requests from multiple passports travel to Africa
and the Mid Least. This article was authored by James
Hill and Thomas Vahlschow. In June twenty eleven, the US
(05:08):
Department of State received an urgent request from an American
businessman who sought a second US passport for impending trips
to Europe and multiple African nations. I am frequently required
on extremely short notice to schedule international trips with itineraries
to multiple destinations, requiring me to obtain multiple visas at
(05:28):
the same time, which is simply not possible on such
short notice without a second passport, the letter said. The applicant,
who identified himself as the president of an international finance
consulting firm, said he had business trips scheduled in the
coming weeks to France, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Gabon. Now,
what do you think Jeffrey Epstein has to do in
(05:51):
a place like Sierra Leone or Mali or Gabon. You
think he has some kind of business dealings down there
that are legitimate. Where do you think he's going down
there to exploit people one way or the other, whether
it's financially or else wise. Please issue me a second
passport so I may have the three visas issued for
Africa while I am using my current passport in France,
(06:12):
he wrote, Now, who was in charge of the state department? Then, oh,
that's right, Hillary Clinton. The businessman's name Jeffrey Edward Epstein.
Three years earlier, Epstein had pleaded guilty in Florida to
solicitation of an underage girl, a felony that required him
to register as a sex offender for life. Unless we're
(06:34):
talking about New Mexico, then, of course, Jeffrey Epstein had
run on the roost, didn't have to register, no state
run investigation. Bro just did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted,
and nobody ever checked him. The letters found among several
passport applications and renewal forms submitted over three decades by Epstein,
(06:55):
who staggering wealth and proximity to power have long defied
ready explanation, and there's no doubt about that. Nobody can
explain how Jeffrey Epstein was able to weasel his way
in when it comes to all these powerful people. Wasn't
because he was a cool guy, wasn't because he had
great conversation, wasn't because he was extra smart. So that
(07:16):
leaves us with what was the offering? Well, we all
know what Jeffrey Epstein had on tap. More than fifty
pages from Epstein's files were obtained by ABC News in
a public records request to the State Department. The records
spanned from the early eighties, when Epstein was an unknown,
bushy haired broker from Brooklyn, to twenty nineteen, when his
(07:37):
indictment in New York for alleged sex trafficking of children
made him notorious worldwide. The documents revealed Epstein's pension for
reporting lost passports and his intentions to travel to far
flung destinations, including several countries Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Senegal that
have not appeared in other accounts of Epstein's travels. What
(07:59):
the fuck was he doing in Afghanistan? I mean, for real,
we're talking about a war torn country. I mean, he
was talking about these security risks, So what does he
need a passport to Afghanistan for? What are you doing
in Afghanistan? And who are you doing it for? Now?
If I had to make a wager, my guess is
that had something to do with Saudi Arabia. The earliest
(08:21):
application is from April nineteen eighty three, when Epstein sought
to replace a lost passport in time for an upcoming
trip to London. And barely legible handwriting, then thirty year
old Epstein lists his occupation as banker and his address
as an apartment on Manhattan's Upper east Side. The staple
color photograph depicts Epstein, who in later years favored loose
(08:41):
fitting track suits, in a crisp black suit and glossy tie.
In the mid eighties, Epstein was a college dropout who
taught math at an exclusive Manhattan private school and later
worked for five years as a self described financial strategist
on Wall Street. After an abrupt exit from bear Stearns,
he claimed to have launched a career as a self
employed investment advisor for the uber Rich. Epstein twice more
(09:06):
in the nineteen eighties, reported as US passport lost or
stolen once left behind in a London black taxi, and
once stolen out of his jacket pocket as he dined
at a restaurant. According to his explanations in the files,
literally never happened. Imagine believing that, oh yeah, Jeffrey Epstein
lost his passport or is it more likely that he
(09:28):
was looking to make a false passport, some kind of
doctored up one and needed a base to do that with.
So say you lost your passport, get another passport and
you still have the one you said you're lost, and
you can use it to you know, modify or whatever
and make fake documentation. And what Jeffrey Epstein's above that.
(09:49):
When I say that this is the smarmy son of
a bitch, I mean it. He was up to no
good in every aspect of his life. In an application
to replace his passport on February twenty, nineteen eighty five,
Epstein reported he was then residing in London. The address
he provided, which has not previously been associated with Epstein,
(10:09):
is in an area surrounded by foreign embassies. Oh, I
wonder why all of this is just a coincidence, folks.
Has nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein's ties to the
intelligence world, to the world of arms trafficking nothing at all.
In his affidavit of loss, Epstein indicated he had a
flight book the next day to Sweden. Less than a
(10:30):
week later, former Miss Sweden Eva Anderson was the host
of a televised musical contest in the country. Video of
the event on Earth by YouTube user Greenclown twenty twenty
one shows Epstein in the audience clapping half heartedly between
musical acts. Anderson would later testify in Glenn Maxwell's criminal
trial in twenty twenty one that she and Epstein dated
(10:54):
on and off in the nineteen eighties. And when you
go through all these articles and you go through all
the information, always a little golden nugget, right, And here
that golden nugget is the fact that Jeffrey Epstein's house
was basically in diplomat Row, not near the financial sector,
not near you know, any place where he's going to
be working, but next to the power base. I'm sure
(11:15):
that's all a coincidence, too, right, That wasn't by design.
Jeffrey Epstein would never ever set himself up like that.
I mean, it's no different than the lobbyists down on
K Street in DC. Same kind of shit, right. I mean,
if these are the people that you're trying to manipulate,
these are the people that you're trying to you know, coerce,
then yeah, you want to have access to them, and
(11:36):
what better way to do that than live directly in
the middle of all of them. Epstein's ninety three passport
application shows his hair graying and his fortunes improving. He
listed his address on East sixty ninth in New York
City was the former resident of the Iranian Ambassador, which
had been taken over by the State Department before Epstein
(11:57):
rented the property. The government later termed Epstein's lease after
he sub let the townhouse without permission and jacked up
the rent. Now that's the townhouse that Klaine Maxwell was
talking about in the transcripts that she ended up renting.
I guess it's just another coincidence in a long line
of Jeffrey Epstein related coincidences. All right, folks, we're gonna
(12:18):
wrap up episode one right here, and in the next episode,
we're gonna pick up where we left off. All of
the information that goes with this episode can be found
in the description box. What's up everyone, and welcome to
another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're
picking up where we left off with the article from
ABC News talking about Jeffrey Epstein and his passports and
(12:42):
his travels to Africa. This article was authored by James
Hill and Thomas vall Show. The records obtained by ABC
News also contained multiple instances in which Epstein applied for
a second passport in order to avoid conflict visa stamps
when traveling to Israel and certain Arab states including Jordan
(13:02):
and Saudi Arabia. That's so ridiculous. So that's the excuse
he was worried that a plane was gonna get hijacked.
I mean, it's a convenient excuse, but does it hold
water not for me, It doesn't. What it really is
is more cover for Jeffrey Epstein to engage in clandestine
type of behavior. And when he has access to all
these different passports and these visa stamps, it's easy for
(13:25):
him to come and go as he pleases. Right. Let's remember,
Jeffrey Epstein wasn't flying in on a twa flight. Bro
was coming in on his own plane, landing in private
air fields, and able to do pretty much whatever he wanted.
Wasn't like somebody's boarding his plane and checking what he
has and not for nothing, but how much cargo can
(13:47):
is seven twenty seven, seven forty seven hold a whole lot, right?
So who the fuck knows what Jeffrey Epstein had on
those planes? Even Epstein has long standing connections at who Barack,
a former Prime Minister of Israel. Barock publicly acknowledged visiting
Epstein more than ten but much less than one hundred times,
including one visit to Epstein's private estate in the US
(14:11):
Virgin Islands. He told The Daily Beast in twenty nineteen
that he never attended a party with Epstein and had
never met him in the company of women or girls,
which is a lie. We've seen the pictures and we
know that Ehud Barack is out here telling falsehoods. And
when I talk about epstein amnesia, people like Ehud Barack
(14:31):
are exactly who I'm talking about. Instead of just owning
up to the relationship that you obviously had, you try
and bullshit everybody and act like you weren't close, act
like you dudes weren't involved in, you know, a pretty
deep relationship. You were business partners, friends. The whole thing
a New York Times columnist reported in twenty nineteen that
(14:51):
Epstein had boasted without evidence of speaking often with Mohammed
bin Salmon, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Well, his
plane was in Saudi Arabia Riod the night before the
twenty sixteen election. So what was Jeffrey Epstein doing in Riod?
What's he ever doing there? Right? What's the connection? Well,
it goes all the way back to Kashogi, and Jeffrey
(15:15):
Epstein has been well situated within the kingdom ever since. Look,
the Saudi's understood that they had an asset, they understood
they had somebody that they could utilize. And like I've
said before, Jeffrey Epstein was a free agent. My guy
was out here looking to make some dough, looking to
get more influence, looking to collect more compromant, and if
(15:38):
that meant working for the Saudi royal family, so be it.
For both safety and business reasons, it's imperative that mister
Epstein have the necessary flexibility of a second passport, one
of his corporate representatives wrote in two thousand and three.
State Department policy permits certain frequent international travelers to carry
a second passport, particularly in cases where a visa state
(16:00):
from one country might prohibit entry into another, he had
no problems with that. Stop it. When you have his
kind of money, you really think one of these countries
is going to stop him from coming in. You really
think that some customs agent in Gaban or Malli or
wherever can't be paid off. That's how this dude operated. Remember,
(16:21):
like I was saying a second ago, he wasn't flying
into the local airport on some twa flight, you know,
bording on a delta flight in New York and then
flew over to Saudi Arabia. He's on his own plane.
And with that comes its own set of rules. And
of course that allowed Jeffrey Epstein to keep the nature
of his business, at least for a very long time, secret.
(16:43):
And one of the ways he was able to do
that is that he didn't have the same kind of
rules that the rest of us do when it comes
to international travel. The issue arose again two years later
when Epstein reported a scheduled trip to Israel and Afghanistan.
Talk about two wildly different places. Is what kind of
business do you have in Afghanistan? That's the question I've
(17:04):
had for a very long time, What is Jeffrey Epstein
doing in Afghanistan in the middle of a war? And
I don't think we have enough answers when it comes
to his behavior in Afghanistan and some of these other places.
And I think that was all by design, right, I mean,
when we're talking about a place like Afghanistan, there can
only be a few reasons for Epstein going there. And
(17:26):
if you take some of the things that we've talked
about previously and add them to this situation, it kind
of makes sense. Right. We know that Epstein was involved
with a lot of gun runners back in the day.
We know that he had a whole network set up
for his human trafficking. Could Epstein have been involved in
bringing weapons into Afghanistan in a clandestine nature? Very possible. Now, Look,
(17:49):
that is just speculation on my part, and I want
to make that clear. I don't have any evidence to
back that up besides the circumstantial evidence that we've compiled
throughout the years. But there's just no explanation for what
Epstein's doing in a place like Afghanistan in the middle
of a war. Especially he's worried about passport stamps, but
(18:09):
he's going to fly into Kabul. As part of the
request for an additional passport, Epstein submitted travel itineraries indicating
he had booked two first class trips in the spring
of two thousand and five. Two first class trips. Huh,
I don't think Jeffrey Epstein was ever on a passenger
plane a commercial passenger plane. This guy zero chance. Epstein
(18:35):
also provided details of a journey that would take them
on April seventh, two thousand and five, to Istanbul, where
he would connect through Baku, Iserbaijan to Kabul. The records
do not indicate whether he actually made the trip. On
Epstein's scheduled departure from Kable, the late former US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unannounced visit to the Afghan
(18:57):
capital for a joint press conference with Resident Amid Karzai.
There's no evidence that Rumsfeld and Epstein's visits were connected,
just another coincidence. Again, what was he doing there? Isn't
that the question everybody should be asking? Who was he
meeting with, Why was he there, who approved it, Where
did he land, who did he meet with, who was
(19:18):
at the tarmac waiting for him? You know, very basic questions,
But still all these years later and no answers. While
Epstein was apparently traveling in southern Asia, police officers in
southern Florida were hunting for evidence in trash cans outside
his Palm Beach mansion. Three weeks earlier, the parents of
a fourteen year old girl had reported to police that
(19:40):
their daughter had been molested by a white haired man
who went by the name Jeff. The police investigation that
followed would turn up dozens of alleged under age minor
victims and begin a saga that would ultimately lead to
Epstein's permanent status as a sex offender. For all the
good it did, he was still abusing girls all the
way up to a second arrest, but that designation would
(20:03):
have little impact on Epstein's ability to obtain a US
passport or to travel internationally until Congress passed the International
Megan's Law in twenty sixteen. Imagine being a molester, a
child molester, and able to just travel freely wherever you wanted, unchecked.
If you've been convicted of the crimes that Epstein was
convicted of, you should not be allowed to fly internationally.
(20:27):
That legislation allowed the government to revoke the passports of
sex offenders who must reapply for a special passport carrying
a notice inside that reads the bearer was convicted of
a sex offense against a minor and is a covered
sex offender. According to the State Department, It also strengthened
the requirement that registered sex offenders provide advanced notice for
(20:49):
all intended international travel. Well that's a good idea, I mean,
if you're going to let them travel. If it was
up to me, these scumbags would be underneath the prison,
not traveling internationally. Epstein's file indicate that a passport issued
to him in twenty sixteen and valid for ten years
was revoked. A second passport, valid until twenty twenty, was
(21:12):
also revoked. His final application in the State Department files
indicates his last US passport was issued in March of
twenty nineteen. ABC News has previously obtained records of the
United States Marshall Service that show the agency was looking
into Epstein's foreign trips. Investigation reveals Epstein travels internationally quite
(21:34):
frequently using private planes, and may also have failed to
report all of his international travel. January twenty nineteen, reports stated, well, yeah,
he doesn't want anyone knowing what he was doing. That
was the whole point, right, the whole entire clandestine nature
of Jeffrey Epstein's activity had to be protected by somebody
(21:54):
besides him. He couldn't do all this on his own.
Get these passports, get the visas. You know, all of
that was not done by Jeffrey Epstein just asking for it.
He pulled on levers and people helped them. And when
I talk about the Epstein files, I want to know
who was helping them, who signed off on all this stuff,
(22:16):
who was his contact, who was the person in charge,
because those people need to answer some questions. And furthermore,
those people that were involved in any way, we should
be checking in their financial statements how much money did
they get after dealing with Epstein, And after they were
dealing with them, did they engage in some kind of
criminal behavior. If so, they should be held accountable. So
(22:40):
for me, at least, that's what I mean when I'm
talking about the Epstein files. I want all of this
stuff that puts the pieces together, the things that tie
everything up. And until we get all of that stuff,
forget it, we're never going to have the truth. Six
months later, he was arrested at Teeterborough Airport, New Jersey
after his private Gulfstream jet down from Paris. A federal
(23:01):
indictment charged them with conspiracy and child sex trafficking. When
FBI agents executed a search warrant at Epstein's New York
home later that day, they found the lock safe that
contained forty eight loose diamonds and seventy thousand dollars in cash.
Also recovered were three US passports and one Austrian passport
(23:22):
with Epstein's picture but with someone else's name and an
address in Saudi Arabia. Unexplained, nobody has told us how
we got the Austrian passport. That's not normal. You shouldn't
just be able to go get a passport from a
foreign country unless, of course, somebody is greasing the wheels
for you, right, unless somebody's opening that door. So the
(23:43):
question is who opened the door for Epstein to get
that Austrian passport? Again, still not answered. Epstein's defense attorneys,
seeking to secure bill for their client, said that two
of the US passports were expired. The foreign passport, they claimed,
was given to Epstein by a friend and he had
never used it to travel. They argued he received it
(24:03):
in the eighties for personal protection when traveling in the
Middle East, so he received it in the eighties but
never used it. Yeah, okay, sure do people really believe this?
Anyone who believes this shit is crazy. Some Jewish Americans
were informally advised at the time to carry identification bearing
a non Jewish name when traveling internationally in case of hijacking.
(24:24):
His attorney said, that's bullshit too. Sorry, I don't believe
it for one single second. Convenient excuse, no doubt about it,
but true, I have my doubts, partly because of that
foreign passport and Epstein's history of international travel. A judge
determined Epstein was a flight risk and refused to grant Bell.
(24:45):
Three weeks later, Epstein was dead. His death was ruled
a suicide by hanging. And here's the kicker, folks, you're
ready for it. Following his death, the Martial Service investigation
into his travel was dropped. Well, isn't that convenient? Just
like the investigation into the CVR was dropped, Just like
the investigation into that the other thing was dropped. And
(25:06):
the reason that all these investigations stopped was because Jeffrey
Epstein died. If he didn't die in that jail cell
all these investigations would have been ongoing, all these rocks
would have been turned over, all these doors kicked in,
but instead, conveniently for them, all of that ended when
Epstein died. And isn't it ironic that all the coincidences
(25:27):
seem to favor the people who want Epstein gone? And
from my money, that might be the biggest coincidence of
them all. All of the information that goes with this
episode can be found in the description box.
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