A small U.S. Virgin Islands bank owned by Jeffrey Epstein that had sat dormant for years suddenly became active in 2019, processing more than $20 million in the months before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. A Miami Herald investigation found that tens of millions more flowed through the bank after his death, with some funds coming from unspecified sources.

• Southern Country International, an obscure bank Epstein owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands, processed more than $20 million from April to early July 2019 after years of dormancy, according to recently released U.S. Justice Department documents.
• An additional $25 million moved through the bank after Epstein was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019, including a $15 million wire from his Deutsche Bank account in New York the day after his death.
• U.S. federal and local Virgin Islands investigators opened a wire fraud probe into the $15 million transfer in 2020, but closed it four years later without stating any findings or reason in an FBI memo.
• Epstein obtained his banking license on Dec. 19, 2014, from John McDonald, then-head of the islands’ banking agency, who also waived a requirement that the bank employ at least three people — unusual treatment for a registered sex offender.
• The U.S. Virgin Islands settled its lawsuit against Epstein’s estate in 2022 for $105 million; prosecutors had questioned where nearly $13 million the bank held in mid-December 2019 went in two weeks.