In August 2019, financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison while serving time on charges of sexual exploitation of minors, left a net worth of about $560 million (about 813.3 billion KRW), including lavish homes and islands in the Caribbean. He said he managed the assets of the wealthy, yet he had never run a large fund nor disclosed performance. How was he able to amass such an immense fortune?

He was less a financier who moved money than a man who leveraged ‘relationships’ to obtain information and cash, then used that money to buy power. Within his web-like network spanning the globe, women were treated as spoils granted to those absorbed into the ‘Epstein empire’. As the pieces come together and the contours of the Epstein case emerge, it serves as a lens on how global power operates and on the moral bankruptcy of elites.

Sharing the secrets of sexual exploitation was the fastest way for Epstein to build close bonds with the global elite. Epstein invited anyone with money, power, and fame to his island, regardless of politics·business·academia·culture. On that island, underage girls were treated as a ‘service’ provided to them.

At first, he lured underage girls he knew through word of mouth by deceiving them that they only needed to give a ‘massage’, but when authorities ignored victims reports and issued a slap-on-the-wrist disposition, his conduct grew bolder. Epstein ran a vast network that recruited girls around the world. Numerous model scouts, including Daniel Siade and Jean-Luc Brunel, became his hands and feet. Siade, who scoured France·Spain and the rest of Europe for women, wrote in a 2014 e-mail to Epstein, “I feel like a fisherman going out to catch fish (women).” He sent Epstein frequent updates on the girls he had found, and one e-mail read, “I have identified at least five potential targets. They are girls aged 16-17, and a 15-year-old is included.”

The scouts passed the women they had recruited to Epstein, and Epstein in turn passed them to wealthy elites. The number of victims is estimated at at least around 1,000, yet no one has admitted to committing sexual exploitation. The only bases for inferring their sex crimes are the countless e-mails and photographs contained in the Epstein files.

Former U.K. Prince Andrew, who had been sued for sexual assault by Virginia Giuffre, a key witness in the Epstein sexual exploitation case, was newly shown in a photograph lying atop a woman after the U.S. Ministry of Justice released additional documents. Former President Bill Clinton appeared in numerous photographs showing intimacy with various women, including sitting in a bathtub with a woman. An e-mail surfaced asserting that Microsoft founder Bill Gates had contracted a sexually transmitted disease as a result of sexual relations with Russian women.

Whenever Epstein approached someone, he never failed to extend an invitation to come visit his island. Within the insular world of elites, it was likely an open secret that a visit to his island meant access to such a ‘service’. Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, sent Epstein an inquiry e-mail in 2012 asking, “When is the next wild party on your island?” Richard Branson, Virgin Group CEO, invited Epstein in a 2013 e-mail and said, “Bring your harem as well.”

Epstein did not reach the powerful only through his sprawling exploitation network. He curried favor with lavish gifts and large donations, and expanded his influence by circulating high-grade confidential information. Through Peggy Siegal, who ran a media marketing firm, he received detailed information about parties and events attended by politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities, enabling him to discern who wished to meet whom, who wanted what, and which institutions needed money, and he gave them what they wanted.

Epstein gave a high-end cashmere sweater to Noam Chomsky, an emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and to film director Woody Allen he gifted underwear and shirts worth €10,000 (about 17 million KRW). He donated millions of dollars to Harvard University and hundreds of thousands of dollars to MIT. He contributed political funds across Democrats·Republicans alike, including thousands of dollars to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

Elites and those in power rewarded Epstein, who spared no pleasure and money, with larger sums and confidential information. This is well illustrated in the relationship between Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak, along with former Prince Andrew, was among those Giuffre identified as perpetrators of sexual exploitation.

Giuffre testified in statements written in 2014-2015 that she was forced by Epstein to have sex with a ‘famous prime minister’. In a memoir published afterward, she also claimed that she was beaten to the point of losing consciousness and raped by the ‘famous prime minister’. The memoir did not state the prime minister’s name, but in a 2020 legal filing she alleged that former Prime Minister Barak raped her. Barak denied that Giuffre’s claims are true.

Epstein provided Barak with an apartment in New York and supported Jewish organizations. In return, Barak introduced multiple investment opportunities to Epstein. According to a Forbes analysis of Ministry of Justice documents, Epstein’s $1 million (about 1.44 billion KRW) investment in the startup ‘Reporty’ in 2015 came thanks to a referral from former Prime Minister Barak. The company, which develops real-time video·data transmission technology and was founded by alumni of Israel’s elite intelligence units, saw its asset value grow 138-fold in ten years. Epstein also advised Barak to join the board of Palantir, co-founded by Peter Thiel. Epstein and Thiel exchanged more than 2,000 messages and maintained a deep relationship over years.

The connections he extended to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in this way became another shield for Epstein. When Epstein was jailed on exploitation charges in 2008, the investment bank JP Morgan moved to end the large cash-withdrawal privileges it had provided to him. At that time, Jess Staley, a senior executive at JP Morgan, scrambled to stop it, the New Yorker reported, because Epstein had introduced him to several billionaire clients, including Google founder Sergey Brin and Gates.

Peter Mandelson, a former U.K. ambassador to the United States, also secretly passed Epstein sensitive information on financial policies the British government was pursuing in 2009 while he was serving as a cabinet minister. Mandelson, who called Epstein “my best friend”, not only visited the island of Epstein for leisure but also faces suspicion that he received $75,000 (about 100 million KRW) in financial support from Epstein.

Even Steve Bannon, a standard-bearer of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement that despises elites, sought to use the global connections of Epstein to spread his ideology to other countries, CNN reported based on the Epstein documents. Bannon asked Epstein to introduce European politicians and discussed the Trump administration’s trade policy with him.

Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, likewise was found to have remained in contact through 2018, including by co-investing in a private company, contrary to his explanation that he cut off contact out of disgust for Epstein.

To date, the only people indicted in the Epstein case are Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Investigators did not indict even Siade, who lured minors and delivered them to Epstein, citing insufficient evidence.

Yet in the Epstein case, the question ‘who benefited’ is as important as ‘what happened’. Most of Epstein’s victims were young, poor, and desperate for opportunity. By contrast, so many elites benefited through entanglement in the Epstein network that the matter has become not the problem of Epstein alone but of the entire elite interest group.

It is highly likely that U.S. President Donald Trump, who tried to block the release of the Epstein files to the end, at least knew about the sexual exploitation crimes of Epstein. Recently released Ministry of Justice documents record that in 2006 the president called the Palm Beach, Florida police chief who had launched the Epstein investigation and said, “Everyone knows Epstein is doing that (sexual exploitation of minors). You stopped him.”

There is still a long way to go before the full reality of the Epstein case is understood. The 3.5 million Epstein files the Ministry of Justice has released so far amount to only 60% of the total 6 million. Moreover, the documents released to date are criticized for the Ministry of Justice having arbitrarily deleted much information. Representatives Thomas Massie (Republican·Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (Democratic·California), who have led the push to disclose the Epstein documents, are demanding that the Ministry of Justice reveal the names of power figures it redacted.

However, what is already known suffices to understand the moral hypocrisy of the global elite and the world they have led. The ‘monster’ called Epstein is a product of our time, in which money can buy everything, power promises unbounded privilege and impunity, and pangs of conscience fall only to the poor and the vulnerable.