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Documents released by the US Department of Justice show that Swiss bank UBS opened and managed Maxwell's accounts since 2014, moving millions of dollars even after Jeffrey Epstein's arrest...
Swiss bank UBS opened an account for Ghislaine Maxwell in 2014, just months after JPMorgan Chase ended its banking relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and helped her manage up to $19 million in the years before she was convicted of sex trafficking, official documents show.
The documents, released last month by the U.S. Department of Justice, shed new light on the banking relationship between UBS and Maxwell. She was arrested in 2020 and convicted in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
According to the documents, which include emails and bank statements, UBS opened personal and business accounts for Maxwell that held cash, stocks and hedge fund investments. The bank assigned her two relationship managers, who helped her transfer millions of dollars and offered her services reserved for very wealthy clients.
In 2014, after JPMorgan closed Epstein’s accounts, UBS also provided him with a credit card, according to an email. Epstein had been convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor. That account was closed in September of that year, citing “reputational risk,” according to an email from Epstein’s accountant. However, UBS continued its relationship with Maxwell, even though her ties to Epstein were widely reported in the media.
UBS declined to answer Reuters questions about the matter, including why it accepted a client deemed high-risk by another bank. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by UBS or its advisers. Some documents show that the bank conducted due diligence procedures before transferring the accounts from JPMorgan, but details of those checks were not disclosed.
Maxwell's attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
How Maxwell got involved with UBS
Epstein and Maxwell had been clients of JPMorgan for years, but the US bank became concerned about the risk after Epstein's conviction in 2008. In 2011, during "know your customer" checks, JPMorgan classified Maxwell as a "high-risk client" because of his ties to Epstein. In 2013, the bank decided to close Epstein's accounts.
In December 2013, David Wassong, then a partner at Soros Private Equity Partners, introduced Maxwell to UBS. In February 2014, UBS was asked to expedite the transfer of accounts from JPMorgan. Shortly thereafter, the bank opened accounts that Maxwell used for personal expenses, for her organization TerraMar Project, and for several other business entities. As of February 2014, one of her accounts had nearly $2 million in it.
The documents show that Maxwell instructed UBS to transfer large sums of money. In 2016, she requested a $2.5 million payment to Scott Borgerson, whom she had married that year. On July 22, 2019, just 16 days after Epstein’s arrest, UBS transferred $130,000 from Maxwell’s savings account to her checking account to pay an American Express bill.
In August 2019, a month after Epstein's arrest, UBS received a formal subpoena from a grand jury regarding Maxwell and handed over information about the bank transfers to the FBI, according to an official letter.
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