Reported by David EnrichSteve EderJessica Silver-Greenberg and Matthew Goldstein

(Summary version featured below. To read full report, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/magazine/jeffrey-epstein-money-scams-investigation.html)

The Times investigation traces how Jeffrey Epstein built his fortune not through financial brilliance or secret intelligence work, but through a long pattern of deception, manipulation, and exploitation of elite networks. Beginning as a college dropout teaching math at the Dalton School in the 1970s, Epstein’s life changed after a chance introduction to Bear Stearns executive Ace Greenberg, who hired him despite Epstein’s lack of credentials. That opening placed Epstein inside Wall Street’s power structures and gave him legitimacy he would repeatedly exploit.

At Bear Stearns, Epstein quickly demonstrated a defining trait of his career: lying with confidence and evading consequences. He falsified his résumé, abused expense accounts, violated securities rules, and steered benefits to girlfriends, yet repeatedly avoided serious discipline due to his relationships with senior executives. When he finally resigned under investigation in 1981, he left with something more valuable than a job — prestige, contacts, and credibility that followed him long after.

Outside the firm, Epstein escalated from bending rules to outright scams. He defrauded investors, misused client funds, and cultivated wealthy patrons by presenting himself as a mysterious financial fixer who could find hidden assets or engineer tax advantages. These schemes, including a $450,000 oil “investment” that vanished and questionable consulting roles, allowed Epstein to accumulate his first real wealth while avoiding legal accountability.

Epstein’s rise accelerated as he leveraged social capital as aggressively as financial capital. Girlfriends and young women helped him access elite circles, introduce him to powerful men, and reinforce his status. Over time, Epstein embedded himself among financiers, academics, politicians, and philanthropists — joining boards, donating strategically, and using association with respected institutions and families to mask his misconduct and attract new victims and clients.

The pivotal moment came when Epstein gained control over the finances of billionaire Leslie Wexner, which transformed him into a centimillionaire and cemented his position among America’s ultra-wealthy. From there, Epstein’s money, influence, and protection expanded in tandem with his sex-trafficking operation. The investigation concludes that Epstein’s fortune was not the product of genius or secrecy, but of a decades-long pattern of fraud enabled by repeated institutional failures and the willingness of powerful people to look away.