The public record shows very little genuine movement of Jeffrey Epstein's money once Deutsche Bank told him he was being off-boarded at the end of 2018.
The evidence instead points to a five-month "soft-landing" in which Deutsche let him keep using more than forty accounts through May 2019, followed by a two-month blind spot before his arrest on 6 July 2019 in which no confirmed conventional bank relationship has been established, though Bloomberg reported Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) may have accepted at least one Epstein-linked entity account.
Prosecutors, regulators and later civil lawsuits all treat those same Deutsche statements and account records as "Institution-1," suggesting his balances—estimated at well over $500 million—never actually left the bank before he was jailed.
Timeline
Deutsche Bank termination letter (21 Dec 2018)
Continued access and outflows (Jan – May 2019)
Deutsche kept every account live, letting Epstein move funds until May 2019. Regulators called this a "soft landing." Wikipedia, which synthesises the DFS consent order, likewise dates the active relationship "up to May 2019." 4
During this window Epstein:
- Wired $100 000 on 30 Nov and $250 000 on 3 Dec 2018 from the "Butterfly" trust to two named co-conspirators just after the Miami Herald series appeared.
- Had his personal attorney make 97 cash pickups (typically $7 500, totalling > $800 000) from the Park Avenue branch, after explicitly asking how often he could do so without alerts.
Those withdrawals and wires all routed through existing Deutsche accounts — no evidence shows another bank involved in that period.
Formal closure (May 2019)
The DFS order and subsequent press reports agree the accounts were finally shut May 2019, ending a client relationship that began in 2013.45
Two-month gap (May – 6 Jul 2019)
Prosecutors' July 2019 bail filing said records from "Institution-1" (never named in open court) showed Epstein still worth >$500 million and earning ≈$10 million a year while residing in the U.S. Virgin Islands. No alternate bank was identified.
ABC court filings later revealed subpoenas to Citibank, Northern Trust, Bank Leumi, Wells Fargo, Silicon Valley Bank and others—but those requests were retrospective, trying to see if any of them ever handled legacy wires, not proving a new 2019 relationship.6
Bloomberg reported in September 2019 that Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) accepted at least one Epstein-linked entity account "earlier this year," i.e., sometime between Deutsche's shutdown and Epstein's death. Source material is thin—no regulator or prosecutor has produced TD account statements—but this claim suggests the gap may not have been complete.2
Southern Country International Bank (SCIB)
No document in the public docket traces where the $15.5 million came from; filings only state that the cheques were drawn on an estate operating account handled by the co-executors. Judges in St Thomas have demanded, but not yet received, a ledger reconciling those outflows.
Alternate Banking Claims
What is known and unknown
- Known: Epstein's money stayed inside Deutsche Bank until May 2019 — cash and wire activity during that span is detailed in regulatory and prosecutorial filings.
- Unknown: Any confirmed conventional bank that accepted him between late May 2019 and his arrest on 6 July 2019. Bloomberg claims TD Bank accepted Epstein-linked entities, but no regulator or prosecutor has produced verified account statements for that period.
- Plausible but undemonstrated: He could have parked liquidity in lawyer escrow accounts, nominee entities or the still-dormant Southern Country International, but no transaction ledger covering May-July 2019 has been released.
Every public source indicates Epstein's finances did not appreciably "move" after Deutsche Bank's December 2018 notice; they simply continued to flow inside Deutsche platforms until May 2019, after which the record falls silent until his arrest.