“…A deep dive into the relationship shared by Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew Farkas, and one of the top Emirati executives in the UAE reveals the infrastructure Epstein used to smuggle whatever, and whoever, he wanted with impunity.
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How Epstein first encountered Andrew Farkas and Sultan bin Sulayem is unclear, but they were first photographed together in 2005, earlier than previously reported. This article will show that Epstein and his broader network, including offshore financial institutions tied to the Maxwell family, appear to have worked to enable UAE business interests to take over key aspects of American maritime infrastructure. This later resulted in a national security scandal that involved top officials in the George W. Bush administration. In the years after, Farkas helped Epstein develop key aspects of the infrastructure he used and abused in the USVI to facilitate his trafficking activities, with bin Sulayem also offering assistance to help Epstein cover his tracks in major USVI real estate purchases. The evidence contained in this article makes it clear that Farkas and bin Sulayem warrant further investigation regarding Epstein’s trafficking and other illegal activities. However, given the DOJ’s willingness to redact bin Sulayem’s identity on at least one disturbing email, and the close ties of Farkas to the Trump and Kushner families, who also have major Emirati business interests, it seems clear that a federal investigation of these two figures and their ties to Epstein is unlikely.
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Wading into a Cesspool
In its most egregious instances, HUD fraud relied on a dense web of home building companies, real estate investment trusts, and law firms. These entities frequently overlapped with the looting of America’s savings and loans industry and the questionable financial practices associated with Drexel Burnham Lambert’s junk bonds. A veritable leviathan, the reach of this fraud machine extended to the families of powerful American politicians and the intelligence community.
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The CIA connection is particularly interesting, as it quickly becomes apparent that the funding of the Mujahideen was not the only covert operation that SICO had brushed up against. The corporate structure of SICO was set up by the Swiss attorney Baudoin Dunand, who later served on SICO’s advisory board. Researcher Kevin Coogan found that Dunand was involved in another entity, Tyndall Trust, which former American tax attorney Willard Zucker managed. Zucker, in turn, was the man tapped to serve as the financial manager for “The Enterprise,” the private intelligence network tied to the CIA and Israeli intelligence that was established to manage the complicated plots and machinations at the heart of the Iran-Contra affair.
Fluor, the construction giant that had acquired Daniel International — and which interlocked with U.S. Shelter via Buck Mickel — also appears to have been involved in Iran-Contra activities in some capacity. This revelation came from journalist Gary Webb’s reporting on how the CIA-backed Contras were involved in the cocaine trade and had helped fuel the explosion of crack in urban Los Angeles in the 1980s. Of particular interest to Webb was Ronald Lister, a former police officer turned “cocaine hauler and money launderer” for Jose Blandon, one of the right-hand men for Panamanian strongman (and CIA asset) Manuel Noriega between 1980 and 1981.
Around the time he started working with Blandon, Lister formed a company called Pyramid International Security Consultants in California, whose purpose was to “sell weapons abroad” — particularly to the Contras through El Salvador. Webb learned that Lister himself had a CIA contact, Bill Nelson, who had previously served as the CIA’s deputy director of operations. However, at the time that Nelson was operating under a business cover for the CIA, he had been vice president of security and administration at Fluor.
Lister’s contact with Nelson reportedly took place while Nelson was working for Fluor, and the arms trafficker reportedly made frequent visits to the company between 1982 and 1983. Nelson, interestingly enough, had joined up with Fluor in 1977, the same year that Fluor had purchased Daniel International.
U.S. Shelter, meanwhile, embarked on an incredible expansion — and the development of an increasingly complicated corporate organization — in the years after 1977. A string of acquisitions saw the company gobble up smaller property management companies across the United States (such as Gold Crown Properties in Kansas City) and dip into banking by buying Malibu Savings & Loans in California. Subsidiaries were established, including U.S. Shelter Trust of Massachusetts, U.S. Shelter Corporation of South Carolina, U.S. Shelter Corporation of Delaware, etc. These were shuffled around and later merged in various combinations.
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Preying on Ports
For DP World, and later its successor Dubai World, Farkas was much more than a “connections man.” He served as a major adviser and dealmaker for the conglomerate and also for other powerful figures in the UAE. He, along with Andrew Cuomo, whom he hired in 2003 to work at his firm Island Capital, advised developers in Dubai, including those tied directly to Dubai World, both in the UAE and abroad, with a particular focus on the USVI. The extent of Farkas’ ties to the USVI, as well as the extent of his direct ties with Epstein, is detailed in a later section of this article.
It is also worth noting that Epstein was closely connected to key figures at the Carlyle Group during this period, which had close ties to CSX, the UAE, and the Bush family simultaneously. Carlyle has, notably, long been regarded as “the CIA of the business world – omnipresent, powerful, a little sinister,” as the Washington Post once stated.
Epstein was a member of the Rockefeller-created Trilateral Commission when David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, joined the organization. They also served together on the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). Epstein likely gained membership in these organizations through his apparent association with the Rockefellers, as claims that he managed “Rockefeller money” had circulated in the press well before his first arrest in the mid-2000s (Epstein also sat on the board of Rockefeller University during that period).
Rubenstein was also connected to Epstein’s financial network, sitting on the National Advisory Committee of JP Morgan, which –– at the time –– was intimately connected to the Wexner family’s interests as well as Epstein’s USVI activities, including those that intersected with Andrew Farkas (discussed in detail in a subsequent part of this article). However, the clearest ties emerge from the close relationship between Rubenstein’s wife from 1983 to 2017, Alice Rogoff, and Ghislaine Maxwell, along with organizations tied to Maxwell (e.g., TerraMar), and Maxwell’s “secret” husband Scott Borgerson.
However, another figure at Carlyle Group who was arguably closer to Epstein was former Secretary of State James Baker. Baker worked for Carlyle from 1993 until his retirement in 2005, during which time he helped expand Carlyle overseas, including into the UAE. Prior to that, he was secretary of state under the administration of George Bush Sr. Baker had an established yet murky relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, as confirmed by Epstein’s lawyer Jeffrey Schantz. Epstein’s relationship with Baker, as revealed in documents related to later litigation between the State Department and Epstein, enabled Epstein to lease a large State Department property in Manhattan, beginning in 1992, while Baker was still serving as secretary of state until 1997. Connections between Epstein and top figures at the Bush-linked Carlyle Group suggest another possible reason the Bush administration intervened in Epstein’s 2007 court case, as detailed above.
Reporting from Drop Site News last year revealed that bin Sulayem worked to arrange a meeting with Epstein in November 2006, roughly a year after they were pictured together at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show with Farkas.
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From Dubai World to Debt World
Yet another layer of connective tissue fleshing out the Epstein–bin Sulayem–Farkas connections can be found during this period. This particular connection involves the 2008 financial crisis and how it brought Dubai World to the brink, largely due to the activities of Farkas and Epstein-linked bankers, and potentially, Epstein himself.
In 2003, Farkas helped create the Emirates National Securitisation Company (ENSeC), which was “created specifically to facilitate the development of a secondary mortgage system in Dubai, similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States.” Initially, a partnership of Dubai Islamic Bank, the bin Sulayem-controlled Istithmar, Bahamas-based Pender Ltd., and Farkas’ Island Capital, ENSeC issued commercial mortgage-backed securities to “create adequate liquidity in the mortgage financing for the real estate sector.” Farkas served as its executive vice chairman. Later reports credited Farkas with “help[ing] Dubai set up a Sharia-compliant mortgage industry.”
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From Dubai World to Debt World
Yet another layer of connective tissue fleshing out the Epstein–bin Sulayem–Farkas connections can be found during this period. This particular connection involves the 2008 financial crisis and how it brought Dubai World to the brink, largely due to the activities of Farkas and Epstein-linked bankers, and potentially, Epstein himself.
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Epstein was directly involved with toxic and risky mortgage-backed securities as chairman of the $6.7 billion company Liquid Funding from 2001 until at least March 2007. Bear Stearns, Epstein’s former employer, had a 40% stake in Liquid Funding. It is unknown whether any of the mortgage-backed securities created by the Farkas-linked ENSeC ended up being held by Liquid Funding, but given the connections between Epstein, Farkas, bin Sulayem, ENSeC, and Bear Stearns, it seems likely. This is even more likely given that Epstein was pictured with Farkas and bin Sulayem shortly after ENSeC was created, as well as Epstein’s known ties to bin Sulayem and the UAE after 2005 — not to mention the fact that Epstein was considered a foremost expert in the exact type of financing in which ENSeC, Bear Stearns, and others were involved. For instance, Epstein was infamously described as the inventor of derivatives by figures like Reid Hoffman. As a result, it is possibile that Epstein had advised Farkas and bin Sulayem about ENSeC in the lead-up to the 2008 crisis. Adding to this possibility is a recent Bloomberg report, which revealed that Epstein had at least one bank account in the Cayman Islands that were reportedly linked to criminal activity.
In addition, after Dubai World suffered from bad debt due to its links to ENSeC and the global economic crisis, Epstein attempted to find the struggling company a buyer. More specifically, Epstein tried to convince Jes Staley to market Dubai World to the Chinese in 2009. In November of that year, Staley forwarded Epstein an internal email regarding high-level talks with senior officials from the Dubai and Abu Dhabi departments of finance. A few days later, Epstein subsequently wrote to Staley, “The first most elegant deal that you can do. is to have China buy Dubai World Ports. They want turnkey, ops where they can then use their worldwide construction cos for building. would be a first great deal for the new ceo of the IB [investment bank].” Furthermore, in December 2009, Epstein attempted to schedule a meeting between bin Sulyaman and Staley. Epstein told Staley that “sultan is laying the groundwork for you to establish a serious presence. Jpm [JP Morgan] reputation in the region is poor.”
Dubai World’s debt crisis was truly massive, so much so that it threatened the UAE’s entire economy. After investors panicked and the country’s economy teetered, Dubai World attempted to calm them by stating that only its real estate developer, Nakheel, which had been intimately involved with ENSeC, was in peril. Reports noted that Rothschild banking interests, which Epstein was known to represent, were advising the debt restructuring efforts. Dubai World was set to default on December 14th, 2009, but disaster was averted that very morning by a $10 billion bailout from the UAE government that very morning. It seems almost certain, given the timing of his emails, that Epstein was attempting to use Staley and his bank, JP Morgan, to find a buyer to fix the serious problems that Farkas, and likely Epstein, appear to have created for Nakheel and its parent company, Dubai World…”
~ Full article…
