Records filed by the estate on Friday indicate that Southern Country had $693,157 in assets when Mr. Epstein died on Aug. 10. Then, in mid-December, the estate transferred $15.5 million to Southern Country in two checks. Southern Country sent back $2.6 million, leaving the total it received at $12.9 million. The documents filed by the estate do not give a reason for the transfers.
It’s also not clear what Southern Country did with that money. Two weeks later, the year-end value of Southern Country’s assets was $499,759, according to the estate’s filings.
So ~$12.5M transferred after his death is missing an unaccounted for? That's pretty outrageous. Are there methods for tracking that money down? The article doesn't really say anything about an investigation into its whereabouts.
It's really hard not to jump down the rabbit hole, but how else to explain the lax "investigation". There's millions of dollars moving around and nobody cares? Of course they could track this down. But the Virgin Islands isn't going to implicate themselves in this. They consider themselves a victim too (metoo!). I'll just leave my comments there.
Why do you say no one cares? It sounds like the judge cares. Obviously the New York Times cares too.
> a magistrate judge, Carolyn Hermon-Purcell, questioned the estate’s lawyers about the transfers to Southern Country, saying the disclosure was not satisfactory. The judge said she did not know why Southern Country would be receiving checks from the estate. “There’s no explanation for it,” she said.
> A lawyer for the estate responded that some of the payment had been made in error, but the judge was not satisfied with his response and asked him to follow up with a fuller accounting.
Similar to the way con-artists go unpunished b/c their victims are too ashamed of losing face, this theory suggests that Epstein was printing money by blackmailing people who had everything to lose if their shenanigans were revealed.
The details around his relationship with Les Wexner (billionaire owner of L Brands; Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works, etc.) are especially bizarre. Wexner gave Epstein power of attorney; basically granting control of all of his financial assets!
Epstein was good at what he did plus he had lots of money from the ponzi scheme he was involved with.
Wexner is also widely believed to be gay. In his case, I don’t think blackmail is probable considering the power of a smart, rich, confidence artist.
I’m sure there’s no doubt that a variety of intelligence agencies and private groups targeted Epstein for information. But I’m skeptical that this all originated as anything more than ego and confidence skills.
You think someone who built multiple retail empires would give someone power of attorney because they seemed skilled? Power of attorney transfer is for people who are dying or mentally disabled.
Power of attorney can be used for some international tax dodging schemes - laws are inconsistent on which of the two people must pay/report the tax, and by doing that across a country border, you can avoid the tax without anyone breaking the law.
There are also lots of levels of power of attorney. It can be as limited in scope as to a single bank account with limitations. So I question whether this was full on power of attorney or some limited scope that we are lacking details of.
There's been some recent reporting by ABC News that Wexner also handed Epstein billions of dollars in stock in L Brands with essentially no strings attached. It is crazy that Wexner is not being investigated. There should have been a no-knock raid on his Albany mansion months ago.
Wexner is a long time, major financier of Republicans at the state and national level. He’ll never see any investigation, outside maybe some investor suits because L Brands stock is tanking.
Of course it does, but those are still the interests that protect Wexner and I don’t think it’s controversial to say as much. I’m sure no shortage of Democrats would rush to protect Bill Gates if his ties to Epstein were more fully exposed.
The relevant but of of information was that Wexner is in close ties with a major political party, in this case, the Republicans, and that major political parties are known to protect their wealthiest friends.
You got stuck on the mention of the Republicans, but GP was trying to say something about Wexner, not singling them out. If GP had said 'a political party' instead of 'the Republicans', it would have sounded more hand-wavy.
Wexner lives in New Albany, Ohio, Ohio’s 12th congressional district, which, barring voting for Obama in 2008, has been solidly Republican for a long time:
There were widespread reports and NYT articles when the NYC mansion and Little Saint James island were raided. The last word on the New Mexico ranch was a CBS report in August that it still had not been raided, and there's been zero word since. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-news-ranch-new-...
Give Moneyland a read/listen to if you want to go down a rabbit hole about how hard money is to track once it enters an offshore bank account. We really have an international finance issue for situations for this.
Bank to bank transactions seem to be pretty much a wild west after you leave 1st world countries, like the US, assuming that there are limited treaties between the two countries, etc... The only reason why these major "bank hacks" (different subject, but just sharing) work is because you can transfer the money out and liquidate without real issues (until you get caught for whatever reason).
I could have been more specific but in any case, that's not particularly relevant given the fact that taxation is significantly more favorable there compared to other principalities, territories, et. al. of the US.
I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation for investigations being constantly spiked or important evidence repeatedly disappearing during Epstein's life, is that enough high-ranking officials got invited to "parties" and slept with his underage sex slaves (or worse) on video, and were then blackmailed. The fact that even after his life there aren't gobs of collaborators being arrested also leads me to think that he wasn't even in charge of the whole thing.
I am not normally a conspiracy theorist.. but I have come to suspect the same.
One example, despite all that has come up in the this case, and the number of times Ghislaine Maxwell's name has been brought up, there is no word of her whereabouts. Unless we think she is some Jason Bourne level expert that can just make herself disappear, I can think of only three explanations -
1) The law enforcement agencies are choosing not to find her and track her
down for some reason.
2) She is being kept hidden (willingly or unwillingly) by someone else who has the means and ability to do so.
3) She is already dead and her body will turn up at some point.
The thought there could be such types of 'cover ups' in the western democratic world is very scary. I was always certain this stuff only happened in the movies, now I am not as sure about that.
Where there's a will, there's a way. Start squeezing her assets. Socialites cannot live without spending hundreds of thousands dollars a year which is difficult to do when one's accounts are frozen.
If she's sitting in a cafe in some random country, let's say Morocco or Bermuda, what is their law enforcements motivation for finding her? As far as I understand, there is no arrest warrant out for her, nor any Interpol involvement. They've got better things to do, so I wouldn't be so quick to assume law enforcement around the world is in on this.
>what is their law enforcements motivation for finding her?
If even a fraction of what is alleged about Epstein's schemes is true then whoever has her can obtain the kind of dirt that multi-billion dollar intelligence agencies can only dream of.
As another commenters said she is probably in Israel. By virtue of connections and it having a very big stake in not pissing off the US too much she is unlikely to get the $5 wrench treatment there.
Who's not to say that they weren't already intelligence assets and this whole kompromat operation was actually ran by a nation-state or collection of nation-states?
Same here. It's incredibly striking to sort of see the pieces laid out in front of you, really _feel_ that they put together facts, but not have the glue you need to objectively/factually put them all together.
To me it feels like the "Israeli operative" scenario seems pretty legit.
Ghislaine Maxwell is the daughter of an alleged Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) operative. Coming from someone who hates conspiracy theories, I think this one isn't too far fetched.
He's confused on the yachts (easy to do, I suppose). DJT bought Adnan Khashoggi's yacht. Emad is his cousin. Emad's yacht was bought by Maxwell. Adnan's yacht was bought by Trump, which was foreclosed upon a few years after he purchased it.
Coming from someone who hates conspiracy
theories, I think this one isn't too far fetched.
Yeah, I agree.
Typically I don't believe conspiracy theories, on the simple grounds that large numbers of people can't keep secrets very well.
The Epstein thing kind of has that answer built in.
A rich guy became "untouchable" by throwing sex parties and gathering blackmail material on important people. That's pretty much the easiest thing in the world to believe. At some point it becomes a self-perpetuating thing. Nobody wants to investigate him because it's a potential career-ruiner.
And keep in mind that he didn't need direct evidence on you. You just need to attend one of his parties where bad things went down. Let's say he's got video evidence of Famous Persons A, B, and C doing something at the party that happened on a specific night. You were at the party too, but like 47 out of the 50 guests you did nothing wrong and had no idea wrongdoing was happening. Well, now you're scared too. Maybe Epstein directly threatens you. Puts you in the little black book or whatever. Or maybe not. Some underage teenager was being victimized, and you were there, and now you have a strong incentive to hope the whole thing blows over because you're terrified of being painted as an abuser even though you were just there for the free shrimp and cocktails.
To me, it seems like the kind of thing anybody with sufficient money could pull off. It's not exactly news that donating fat sums of money to various institutions gets you prestige and access to lots of influential people.
I don't have an opinion on the Mossad stuff one way or another. Seems plausible but as for a guess on the likelihood it's way over my pay grade.
IMO you've captured all the important aspects, and yeah whether it's Mossad or CIA or organized crime or Satan worshippers, or some combination of them, a.) Isn't really that important, because the effects of the network exerting its power are the same regardless, and b.) Is probably just meant to be an unproductive side question for people to waste time examining.
The mossad is one of the most active and effective intelligence agencies in the world. Their stories both successes and failures (that we’ve heard about) are legendary.
That may itself be an intelligence agency psy op. The origins of the Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories are very opaque, but the leading promoters were Jack Posobiec (former naval intelligence) and Mike Cernovich (who featured Alan Dershowitz in one of his documentaries).
Oh Pizzagate and QAnon were most defiantly PsyOps ran by some nation state. You just need to surround a little bit of truth, around a whole lot of lies, to hide that little bit of truth.
If I had to guess, Pizzagate was somehow linked to Epstein's associates. I'm a little more certain of QAnon. I think that one is the GRU (what Russia calls the KGB now).
QAnon in particular has been extraordinarily effective at diverting people with a manic focus on the Epstein case and elite pedophilia into a never-ending maze of dead ends and spurious connections. And I think both were intended to quash Epstein speculation by associating it with the Alex Jones set.
Morocco and Bermuda are pretty naive guesses. Her mother was a "holocaust expert" and her father was not merely an agent for the Mossad but some sort of hero in the organization. She's practically Israeli royalty
The simplest explanation here, if you’re trying to include outside interference, is that a patient on suicide watch was intentionally allowed conditions in which he could finish the job.
Why hang him when you can intentionally botch the surveillance and he’ll hang himself for you? Much cleaner.
If you want to keep the money, presumably yes. If you don't mind becoming an anonymous but financially insecure expat in the jungles of South America or Asia, then sure.
1) If you're throwing lots of money around, there's a trail of evidence--electronic, paper, gossip. 2) If people know you're trying to hide--because you're getting face change surgery, because you're trying to launder gobs of cash--you're vulnerable to extortion, theft, and murder, in the moment and in perpetuity. (Again, the world is an ugly place filled with untold numbers of nasty people and billions of desperate people.)
You need either the law or a credible threat of retaliation to protect large assets. The former requires identity and a trail of evidence of ownership, not to mention reliable law enforcement; the latter requires reputation, which requires identity and a trail of evidence of retaliation. And except for industrial countries with a strong rule of law (i.e. the places you're probably trying to flee), both the law and the jungle require regular payments in cash, favors, or blood, commensurate with the assets you're trying to protect, to maintain the state of things. Not only can that quickly diminish your wealth, you're creating an ever larger footprint.
Is it possible? Theoretically, just like in the movies. But it's not easy. And it's not easy to pivot from an ultra rich, jet setting, flamboyant con-man to an anonymous nobody. It's worth noting that your link proves my point--his fake identity was readily discovered with a routine search warrant and home inspection. Epstein wasn't willing to give up the comforts of his public persona and the convenience of switching between his identities. And he clearly wasn't willing to flee before he got caught, which is something of a prerequisite.
Having some money is a good start. You can buy a bar or a hostel in some far flung part of the world where nobody asks questions, and hopefully you can coast for several decades. Maybe you can hide just enough gold and currency to maintain a comfortable life without drawing attention; enough to match the flow of retirement benefits (Social Security, etc), which can often be drawn down regardless of residency and are a common source of income for older expats. Otherwise, it's just mo' money, mo' problems.
On the other hand, it's rare for authorities to care enough to hunt someone down to the ends of the earth. But I assume the context here is a motivated intelligence agency or similarly resourceful and persistent organization (e.g. DoJ no longer able to turn a blind eye). Either way, though, the easiest way to hunt someone down is to follow the money.
Sources: Movies. Education. Traveling and meeting "interesting" expats from various countries fleeing everything you'd expect (wives, taxes, poverty, etc) except prosecution for heinous crimes, if their stories are to be believed.
I'm not sure the government failing, for whatever reason, to hold private organizations and individuals to account for their wrongdoing is quite a clear, blanket argument against government power, in favor of the power of private organizations and individuals.
I don't. People vote against their best interests all the time. The SF housing market is self-inflicted from people voting against new housing, because many of them don't understand the concept of supply and demand.
Neither markets nor democracy are perfect, but at least free markets are efficient.
> many of them don't understand the concept of supply and demand.
Or they understand supply and demand perfectly well, and figured out that if they legislatively block new development, fixed supply + growing demand = rising home prices = better investment.
It seems strongly that former requires the latter. Without markets you have a totalitarian state. And black markets. Everyone everywhere wants and needs to trade, for themselves and their families.
The idea of genuine democracy is the loyal opposition. You dochange the government, regularly, without collapsing everything into anarchy.
Endemic corruption will lead to systemic collapse. This makes it worthwhile to vote the best corruption reform candidates regardless of ideology or party.
Democrats have voted Trump, Republicans support Bernie on that basis. It's not completely silly.
I don't think it's as black-and-white as government bad private sector good.
People do bad things and we've been trying to fix our selves for a long time now.
We need to take personal responsibility for our own actions, and be honest and transparent, ready to accept the repercussions for what we have done. I'm speaking directly to individuals involved here, but I'm also speaking for and to all of us.
It's scary to come out about how fucked up we are, but it's how to heal.
We need to stand up and openly repent when we have done wrong. We need to stop defending and hiding our own evil.
> The fact that even after his life there aren't gobs of collaborators being arrested also leads me to think that he wasn't even in charge of the whole thing.
There are enough reasons to believe that Jeffrey Epstein might have operated a honeypot for Mossad, and Ghislaine Maxwell was his handler:
Personally, I believe that he was a kind of person who would have never killed himself. And that's not the only thing he had in common with Donald J. Trump:
> The accuser says Trump raped her repeatedly at parties thrown by since-convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was widely known to throw wild parties with young women and girls.
Needless to say, the current US policy in Middle East has given Israel almost everything it has ever asked for, and what no other Western nation has agreed with:
> Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital was rejected by a majority of world leaders. The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on December 7 where 14 out of 15 members condemned Trump's decision, but the motion was vetoed by the United States.
It's easy to say "this is bad" but put yourself in the position of the Israeli leadership. They are a tiny country surrounded by enemies and a people who have experienced horrible atrocities in the recent past. Even though it is wrong I accept that the logical actions for them is to set up exteme measures of blackmail and espionage to further the security of their people and homeland. It's literally a survival issue for them and possibly morally equivalent to a starving person stealing bread.
If Israel had wanted security, they would have accepted the worldwide consensus on the two-state solution 30 years ago, and would have moved on to further diplomatic ties with their closest neighbors.
Instead, Israel wants territory and power, so they build illegal colonies on stolen land, they brutalize Palestine and make a show of brutally repressing them,and they antagonize and threaten their neighbors in defiance of international law. There will be no peace in Israel as long as this doesn't change, but they may well flourish economically from this.
On the other hand, to believe that the US is an unwilling, blackmailed participant in all of this is absurd. The US is not Israel's dim-witted reluctant ally, it is actively spurring on Israel in all of their actions, both in order to extend its influence and defeat its enemies in the area (Iran's independence and rejection of the Cia-installed Shah will not be forgiven or forgotten), and to keep a steady demand for US armaments going in the area.
I fully agree with you until the part about the USA. Yes, it's true that the US aren't a reluctant ally but an enthusiastic one; but this is because the US have been led to believe through relentless lobbying and propaganda that their interests always coincide with those of Israel. Which is of course not true, and cannot be true by definition. But the level of confusion is such that Kushner, who as a government official was given a top secret security clearance (besides being in charge of delivering a "peace plan" between Israel and Palestine) was also on the board of a "charity" collecting money for Israel's army. Let that sink in: someone who was collecting money to fund the army of a foreign country was given an official government role and a top secret security clearance!
Perhaps I misspoke, I didn't mean to imply that the population of the USA has its interests aligned with Israel.
I meant that the US ruling class is very much happy with Israel's actions, because the turmoil in the region often lines their own pockets, and at least attacks a lot of their own enemies.
> and at least attacks a lot of their own enemies.
But how much of the enmity is simply due to the US's support of Israel? Am I the most loyal friend of a bully because his victims are my enemies, or his victims hate me because I am his most loyal friend?
In the case of Iran at least, the enmity began after Iran nationalized some BP oil in the gulf, prompting the UK to ask for CIA help in getting rid of the democratic Iranian government at the time, and reinstating the military dictatorship of the Shah. That plan succeeded for a while, but later backfired with the Iranian Revolution which led to the current Israel-hating, fundamentalist Islamic regime [1].
So in thisccase at least, the US - Iran enmity would still be there even if Israel was completely neutral. Of course, a lot of other sources of enmity have accumulated over the years, but this is most likely the 'original' reason.
You're assuming that the enmity caused by an event of almost seventy years ago would still be intact in the absence of other factors. It is possible, but it's a stretch. Justifying the reciprocal hatred with the formulas "they overthrew our democratic president"/ "they kept our people hostages" is convenient, but these are just formulas. A lot of stuff has happened since and there was plenty of time for normalization of relationships. The fate of the nuclear accord is telling: a move towards peace and normalization was sunk by the most unapologetically pro-Israel president in US history.
All intelligence agencies are staffed by the morally bankrupt. To get bin Laden the CIA set back the effort to end polio decades. There are no good people in intelligence, only bad ones working for one country and bad ones working for another.
Sorry if this should have been more obvious, but are you referring to something that I seem to remember hearing about where the groups vaccinating were supposedly taking blood samples from people being vaccinated for DNA analysis, which when the story broke would have tarnished the willingness of patients to get vaccinated?
I do apologize. It has been a long while since I even recalled seeing that in passing, and I never really thought about it at the time; but it has stuck with me as a case illustrating the criticality of trust in medicine.
> to further the security of their people and homeland.
They're not furthering the security of the homeland. They're furthering the homeland, expanding it into territories belonging to people who face a much worse existential threat- Israel itself.
I've come to the conclusion that he was an intelligence asset. The dog that doesn't bark is the fact that, to my knowledge, there are no on the record statements from the intelligence community which deny he was an asset.
What's even more conspicuous is that there is clearly a strong interest by the public. Even if all these "conspiracy theories" are false, you could get a LOT of viewership just going around debunking them. But it's like complete silence from the traditional corporate media.
If the intelligence community can't publicly deny that perhaps the most prolific child rapist in known history was an asset, we have serious problems. Regardless of standard policy.
Imagine being a regular forces soldier at a base in Afghanistan who discovers that an allied local commander likes to rape little boys. On base. Imagine being told that you can't do anything about it, because if you piss him off Americans will die. The world is a really, really, really shitty place for the powerless and for naive idealists. Epstein was scum, but he's not as bad as some of the people we regularly work with to uphold our system. It's depressing.
If upholding the puppet government in Afghanistan requires allying with pederasts the US should get out. Afghanistan has never had anything worth an occupation. The only reason the US is still there is to try and wash away the stain of Vietnam. As soon as the US leaves the Taliban will take over again within a year, just like al Shahab in Somalia. Afghanistan is already lost because there's no appetite to completely remake the country; colonialism has gone out of style.
There are evil men in Afghanistan raping boys and there are evil men in Washington defending allowing them to do so.
Exactly. Denying some things but not others just makes it easier to figure out what might be true. The smartest policy is to not comment on anything, ever, no matter how mundane or how absurd.
This is only a problem if the state has sanctioned mass child rape or necrophilic cannibalism. If the state did sanction those actions, we deserve to know.
If they did sanction such things, they'd never admit it. If they didn't, it does them no good to comment on this, or anything, one way or the other. There's no benefit to asking them and no benefit to answering.
We know Epstein was a genuine pedophile. It's not impossible that his actions were his (and Ghislaine's) own. Maybe he was trying to blackmail people for his personal profit, or maybe blackmail wasn't part of it. Maybe he saw it as a way of sharing his "hobby" with people he liked and wanted to get to know more, partly to acquire clout and connections and partly because pedophilia was his passion and something he considered worth doing with others, just like some rich people invite other rich people to go golfing.
There are so many possibilities. Maybe the above is true but he was also an intelligence asset. Maybe he was an asset but the agency/agencies involved weren't aware actual underaged people were involved and dropped him after his 2008 arrest and he then just continued for his own pleasure. Maybe he really was working for one the whole time and the people responsible thought the ends justified the means. Maybe he wasn't and essentially was trying to run his own private intelligence agency, perhaps to sell information to other intelligence agencies, and companies and people who would pay a lot for that dirt.
There's no evidence of anything concrete either way. The prosecutor saying he was told to back off and that he belonged to intelligence is what really sparked all of this, but the meaning of this is still unclear. If the person who told him this wasn't lying, it definitely could mean he was an asset all along, or it could mean that intelligence agencies weren't aware of him until his arrest and realized the potential of the information he might have and promised him leniency if he informed them about every important individual involved, then stopped dealing with him after he was sentenced.
If this is true, this sort of thing isn't uncommon with mass murderers - look at Sammy the Bull. The fact that he kept doing it for a decade when he got out, the unknown sources of his money, and other weird factors certainly could be seen as additional evidence of his actions being sanctioned by some sort of intelligence, but it could mean other things, too.
It's all just speculation.
We also honestly don't know if he was murdered or killed himself; or if he killed himself, if he was permitted or encouraged to do so or if it really was just an ordinary suicide (he'd certainly have strong motive to kill himself). Maybe the base rate of incompetence is so high in that prison that this could happen; maybe 1/3 of the other cameras weren't working then, either, and maybe a lot of guards were slacking off and faking data for years.
Most people seem to jump to the most extreme version of all of these possibilities, but we have almost nothing to go on. Maybe we'll learn the answers someday, but who knows.
> Maybe he really was working for one the whole time and the people responsible thought the ends justified the means.
Listen to yourself. The end these people seek is to set themselves above the law so they can hollow out the world to line their own pockets, play with the lives of entire nations like pieces on a chessboard, and rape children.
I think maybe your cynicism is misplaced. The world is a far uglier place than your comment presumes. And relative to the kinds of people intelligence agencies must deal with sometimes, Epstein's crimes and alleged crimes probably wouldn't raise an eyebrow. (Which isn't a comment on whether they were blackmail worthy.)
First off, he may have had no involvement with intelligence whatsoever, or beyond being interrogated after his arrest.
If the intelligence agencies did set all of this up and told him to get real underaged girls (rather than actors pretending to be underaged) to blackmail people, or knew this was happening and allowed it to continue for so long, that'd actually be big. That's state-sponsored child sex trafficking and rape. But there are so many other possibilities in between that and "no involvement".
We've literally toppled free governments, administered LSD to vulnerable people without their consent, and started purposeful rumors about important people being <insert bad thing here>. What makes you think the CIA wouldn't run a child sex trafficking ring for "the greater good"?
Well, for one, it's [current year], and ethical standards within the CIA seem to have shifted a little. But also, I do actually think operating a child sex trafficking ring would probably be a lot more objectionable for most intelligence handlers than toppling governments.
If someone asked you right now "you have two options: topple a government and replace them with a puppet, or run a child sex trafficking ring", and you had to pick one, which would you choose? If I had to choose, I'd definitely choose the former.
Torture is heinous, of course. But, I have to admit, the torture tactics employed by the CIA in the past two decades against alleged terrorists still seem to be quite an ethical leap compared to what they used to be doing.
Regarding confirming or denying -- it's not like these people have any problem with or shame about directly lying to your face. What they confirm or deny, or fail to doesn't really mean much.
It seems clear that Epstein was involved in Very Corrupt Things with VIPs. I don't know that I would say more than there's a lot of arse covering at this point, but it doesn't look good for those who visited his palaces - they have a vested interest in covering it up.
I wonder if Ronan could working on this story (along with others who had their stories spiked).
He’s often gone where other reporters don’t dare but maybe this one is beyond even him.
Bingo. Based on just what's publicly known about him and Ghislaine Maxwell, it's pretty obvious they're both tied with Israeli intelligence and were collecting blackmail material the Mossad could use to "influence" powerful people. Sexual blackmail is intelligence 101.
The blackmailed would worry that there would be a "deadmans switch" set up that would automatically release the material if not periodically confirmed. Obviously Epsteins deadmans switch was either someone he couldn't really trust, was flawed, or never really existed. If he was smart it would release in steps and be totally digital and dispersed around to many places. If it was me I would have incriminating videos of someone lower on the totem pole released first so that people knew you were serious if they put you in jail. This is why he was locked up then killed after a period in jail, they wanted to see if he had a real deadmans switch. You would need something automatically released and they would need to be low enough so they couldn't get you killed when you burn them. This way everyone else would have to believe you had more automatic release set up.
Let me wonder aloud here. The story goes that Epstein was a Mossad puppet in an operation that served to control the richest, most powerful and influential, most well-connected people alive, to extent to significantly affect things on global political stage. That operation was successfully going on for decades. (That's impressive, but wouldn't really surprise me, as we know for a fact that some even more impressive success stories of several government intelligence agencies dismissed as "conspiracy stories" for decades turned out to be true.)
Then, this very valuable asset (virtually untouchable for some very high-profile people) gets compromised because some nobody accused him of "sexual abuse". There is an investigation, arrest, conviction, yet nothing really leaks, he gets off relatively easy, his masters don't think it is necessary to get rid of him and the whole (pretty public by now, with multiple very famous people low-key-affected) goes on in this messy way for 15 years.
After 15 years he suddenly gets arrested again, this time for good, the whole story gets incredibly public, his bosses suddenly (again, 15 years) realise that he is a liability and decide to get rid of him. He gets killed in a cell by Mossad agents, this is staged as a suicide, which is another "conspiracy theory" for a short while, but in the end we all know that Epstein didn't kill himself. Key evidence disappears and the case is covered on multiple levels, leading up to some very high ranks.
Ok, there are plenty of really really suspicious inconsistencies in that story already, but here's what really baffles me: how come this very well-organized, lead by world-class professionals and covered up by incredibly influential people (both on the "offending" and "blackmailed" sides) operation gets "cleaned up" in a way such that every fucking couch potato in the internet (HN included) sees that this is obviously staged? Mossad cannot silently get rid of people?
I mean, of course everybody (again, HN community members especially included) loves to think they are wa-ay smarter than some Mossad goons and dirty politicians covering this up. But seriously. How can this possibly be so obvious (yet still so mysterious! — we really know nothing in paricluar) unless somebody really wants it to be obvious?
> how come this very well-organized, lead by world-class professionals and covered up by incredibly influential people (both on the "offending" and "blackmailed" sides) operation gets "cleaned up" in a way such that every fucking couch potato in the internet (HN included) sees that this is obviously staged? Mossad cannot silently get rid of people?
What are we going to do about it?
As individuals we feel powerless.
Epstein/handlers have dirt on the media and were able to suppress THE story. Look at the ABC hot mic incident. Who knows how many media organizations are effectively controlled.
The entrenched and ossified power structure which has taken hold at the top has to be fought and dislodged by overwhelming collective action. Also, worth noting that a President of the United States (if backed by overwhelming popular support) could crack open any part of the CIA they wanted and show the public.
The controlled media still exerts a powerful influence over perception and narrative, but it is gradually being eroded by alternative sources and information flows.
"That's impressive, but wouldn't really surprise me, as we know for a fact that some even more impressive success stories of several government intelligence agencies dismissed as "conspiracy stories" for decades turned out to be true."
I would be interested in these, any Wikipedia links?
Not exactly sure what you mean by that one word [0], but: You would consider it a conspiracy theory saying that an agency that is funded to listen in to everything [1] is listening in to everything? And it turns out not to be a conspiracy theory when Snowden reveals that the agency funded to listen in to everything has a program to listen in to everything?
Or does the conspiracy theory have any finer details I'm not getting or is different?
Was it a conspiracy of the agency to listen in on everyone? Or is the conspiracy that the government ('people in the know') conspired to keep it (a secret agency program) secret?
[0] "PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies." Wikipedia
[1] "The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT)." Wikipedia
I never met anyone who said it was a conspiracy theory that the intelligence agencies would listen in to everything on the internet and fullfilling their self stated purpose [0]. Even my mother thinks that is their job.
But it seems you have met people that claim the NSA doing it's job is a conspiracy theory.
What would those people say the job and purpose of the NSA is to explain it's existence?
[0] "The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both signals intelligence (SIGINT) [1] and information assurance (now referred to as cybersecurity) products and services, and enables computer network operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances." https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission-values/
[1] "Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people or from electronic signals not directly used in communication" Wikipedia
It's easy to forget how things were before the Snowden revelations, since Internet privacy issues have been covered much more extensively by the media since then.
(Edited to add "Internet" above.)
> Until Snowden, the idea that Western governments would routinely collect, store, and analyze our personal data sounded like a conspiracy theory to many people.
> The revelations were shocking: the scope and depth of the NSA’s collection of private data stopped looking like a conspiracy theory and became a cold, hard reality we all had to face.
"It's easy to forget how things were before the Snowden revelations, since privacy issues have been covered much more extensively by the media since then."
No it's not. I can't find any data to this narrative. There were (media) discussions on the government collecting all the data it can in the 70s, and they come up with every census.
There have been huge discussions around ECHOLON. There have been huge discussions about COINTELPRO.
Shocking to whom? I never met anyone who was shocked. Did you? Were YOU shocked by the fact that the NSA was listening in on the internet? Was your mom shocked that the government listened in on the internet? Who are those "many people"? Is there a poll or any substantial data? I really would like to hear from someone who thinks that it was a conspiracy theory that the NSA was listening in on the internet and then was shocked by the Snowden revelations.
I've read all three articles and none has any data or facts about the "many people" or any sources. What are many people? Where does this come from?
The parent comment claims:
"considered a baseless conspiracy theory before the Snowden leaks."
Considered by whom?
EDIT: Ok, thanks telling me you were shocked that the NSA was listening in on the internet. I would not have thought that someone on HN was shocked, especially after ECHOLON - I stand corrected.
The key words in here are "scope and depth". Before Snowden, the idea that the American government would collect the communications of hundreds of millions of people who are not under investigation en masse was considered a conspiracy theory by the average American Internet user. I'm not aware of any studies done on this topic, but it's a common sense observation.
Yes, I was shocked by the PRISM disclosures in 2013. Feel free to contact the authors of these articles if you want to argue with them, since they agree.
Edit: You apparently disliked my replies enough to downvote all of my recent comments on other threads.
I was shocked. Most of my tech savvy and industry friends were shocked. My parents were shocked. It was BLANKET metadata collection (and probably more). A Google engineer who eventually encrypted traffic between their internal data centers was shocked: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/00235225143/pisse...
I know people were "absolutely sure" before PRISM leaked, but it was a revelation to many.
As I've said I stand corrected. I just could not imagine people being shocked after PHOENIX [0], COINTELPRO [1] and ECHOLON [2], but even tech savvy people were shocked as you say.
[0] US government knows no limits
[1] US government does domestic espionage
[2] US governemnt listens in on everything
the only reason why MK Ultra was discovered was through a cache of just under 100k files that were supposed to be destroyed but ended up being found on accident. This forced the CIA to shut it down after it being unknown to the public for over 30 years. aka we don't really know how far back it goes and most likely will never understand the entirety of its reach. The Water gate scandal had everyone in the CIA destroying everything under strict rules if my memory serves correct.
Where would the conspiracy therory on MK Ultra be? That the CIA has a research programm using drugs and psychology to find a truth serum against spies of the Soviet Union? And people said this is a conspiracy theory and then the Church commission proofed it not to be one?
How would the Phoenix Program also be a conspiracy theory?
Where is the difference between a secret government agency program and a conspiracy?
Maybe it's worth taking a moment to recall the glaring inconsistencies in the 9/11 story beat into our heads, then used as justification to engage in perpetual war (against an idea) and transform the world into a state of 24/7 total surveillance.
Sergei Skripal would love to have a word with you about doing things in the open. You could also ask Alexander Litvinenko, if he wasnt dead. Its not being sloppy, its showing others the size of your dong.
Epstein may have the record for pimping at scale. There have been pimps for several thousand years. There have been pimps using blackmail. That's not new.
Becoming a billionaire with a private island that way, though - that's new.
Off-topic but for some reason i'm now able to access archive.is via Cloudflare. Queries using 1^4 over DoH are only failing about 1/2 of the time (datacenter ATL).
The number of captchas for the "I am not a robot" checkbox you have to solve is decided by Google's algorithms -- not really a Cloudflare choice other than them allowing their users to show that Captcha page in the first place.
Ehhh, it can be (there used to be ads in the back of the Economist for this sort of thing). The hard part is getting correspondent relationships with bigger banks (i.e. a bank account for your bank).
The difficulty of that exercise is supposed to be directly proportional to the AML/KYC reputation of the jurisdiction granting the charter.
Exceptions abound, of course, and possession of incriminating video of a bank executive might make it a lot easier.
Very generally speaking, it costs about $5M to start a U.S. bank. Someone of Epstein's personal wealth, not to mention the assets under his control, would not have a problem starting a bank easily. His criminal record would have been an issue in the U.S., however, and any regulator worth their salt should have found it and denied the charter accordingly.
there is a strong case to be made that Epstein could still be alive.
Per interviews with the victims he video recorded EVERYTHING at his properties. Pinhole cameras, CCTVs in bedrooms/showers etc you name it.
Chances are in order to protect himself - he had blackmail material on people we all know. If acts described by the victims were secretly taped then those people are royally (pun intended) screwed.
Now the real question is - who in the world is capable to pull off an escape from a prison / suicide / body double swap?
“I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”-Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami.
So the answer is - CIA.
Epstein's buddy Bill Clinton has a "dirty" drug / CIA connection from his Mena / Arkansas days going back to the 80's (it was widely publicized, refer to the book "
Crossfire: Witness in the Clinton Investigation").
CIA is the only organization capable to get Epstein out and safe / get him new identity and help disappear.
It’s also not clear what Southern Country did with that money. Two weeks later, the year-end value of Southern Country’s assets was $499,759, according to the estate’s filings.
So ~$12.5M transferred after his death is missing an unaccounted for? That's pretty outrageous. Are there methods for tracking that money down? The article doesn't really say anything about an investigation into its whereabouts.