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Jeffrey Epstein, the Rothschilds and the Crown
Leslie Wexner names the Queen and her bankers in his Epstein deposition.
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On Wednesday, February 18, Leslie Wexner sat before a House Oversight Committee deposition camera and did something no one in Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit has ever done. He talked. Not in the guarded, monosyllabic way his attorney Michael Levy wanted — five-word answers, nothing more. Wexner talked the way a man talks when he’s been hung out to dry by every other player in the network and has decided, at 88, that if he’s going down, he’s taking the names with him.
For nearly five hours, the billionaire founder of The Limited and Victoria’s Secret volunteered names, connections, and details that his own lawyer tried desperately to shut down. At one point, after Wexner had spent an extended stretch naming Rothschild, the Queen of England, the founders of Google, Jeff Bezos, the King of Saudi Arabia, and Abigail Johnson of Fidelity — his attorney Levy leaned in and whispered what he didn’t know was being picked up by a hot mic: “I’ll fucking kill you if you answer another question with more than five words, okay?”
Wexner laughed.
He kept talking.
What Wexner was doing wasn’t senility. He was alert, following every question precisely, and deliberately steering his answers into territory that his lawyer — and whoever texted that lawyer mid-testimony — did not want him to enter. A minute before the “kill you” moment, Levy received a message on his device. His whole demeanor changed. He stopped smiling. He looked concerned. Someone was watching in real time, and what they were watching was Wexner putting elite names on a congressional record under oath.
This investigation follows those names where they lead.
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“I Spoke to Élie de Rothschild”
Of all the names Wexner dropped, one unlocks the rest.
When asked how he came to hire Jeffrey Epstein, Wexner testified that in 1987, he called Élie de Rothschild for a reference. “I spoke to Élie de Rothschild,” Wexner said under oath. “He represented their whole family.”
Élie de Rothschild — Baron de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the banking dynasty — vouched for a man who had been fired from Bear Stearns, had no financial license, and had spent the previous six years in Europe doing work that remains largely undocumented.
Those six years — 1981 to 1987 — are the black hole at the center of the Epstein story. Before he arrived in Wexner’s orbit, Epstein was operating in Europe alongside Douglas Leese, a British arms dealer who architected the Al-Yamamah deal, the largest arms sale in British history — a £43 billion pipeline of weapons to Saudi Arabia. Leese worked with Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms broker, and Robert Maxwell, the media baron and alleged Israeli intelligence asset. Epstein carried an Austrian passport listing a Saudi residence.
When Epstein returned to America with a Rothschild endorsement, he wasn’t a financial advisor. He was an operative with connections to the arms trade, intelligence services, and European banking — and one of the world’s most powerful families had just given him the keys to American wealth.
To understand what that endorsement meant, it helps to understand the family that gave it. The Rothschilds are not a single entity but a dynasty that branches across Europe, and each branch surfaces differently in the Epstein story.
The family’s roots are in 18th-century Frankfurt banking. By the 19th century, the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild had established banking houses in London, Paris, Vienna, Naples, and Frankfurt — creating the first truly international financial network. The branches have operated semi-independently ever since, but the family name carries weight across all of them.
The French branch, founded by James de Rothschild, produced Élie de Rothschild — the Baron who vouched for Epstein in 1987. The same branch produced the Edmond de Rothschild Group, the Swiss-Luxembourg banking operation now chaired by Ariane de Rothschild, who signed Epstein’s $25 million contract and maintained years of email correspondence with him. The Edmond de Rothschild bank was convicted of money laundering in 2025.
The British branch produced Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Queen Elizabeth II’s personal financial advisor, and his wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein and provided Ghislaine Maxwell with an apartment. The same branch produced Lord Jacob Rothschild and his son Nathaniel, who introduced Oleg Deripaska to British politicians and invested heavily in Deripaska’s RUSAL — connecting the family directly to Russian oligarch money and, through Deripaska, to Putin’s inner circle.
Rothschild & Co, the family’s advisory firm, maintained a Moscow office offering what it described as “unparalleled high-level and government access” in Russia. The Edmond de Rothschild bank in Luxembourg managed the fortune of Russian oil magnate Sergey Bogdanchikov. Different branches, different corridors — but the same family name opening the same doors.
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Epstein understood this architecture intimately. In a December 2018 email to Ariane de Rothschild, he described a Harvard class on Hitler’s years of destitution, during which the future dictator lived in a shelter for the homeless funded by three wealthy Viennese families: “The Gutmanns, the Epsteins, and the Rothschilds.” Epstein added: “the Epsteins were the Vienna bankers. Bought their bank on the ring, hence still Palais Epstein.”
The Palais Epstein is real — an ornate building on Vienna’s Ringstraße, built by the banker Gustav Ritter von Epstein in the 1870s. Whether Jeffrey Epstein was actually descended from that banking family is unverified. But what matters is that he made this claim directly to the chair of the Rothschild bank he represented — positioning his own family alongside hers as Viennese banking aristocracy. Ariane didn’t dispute it. She engaged, responding that she “regularly used to say that Rothschilds planned and supported Hitler in mass destruction to gain more power.” The day before, Epstein had forwarded the same story to Steve Bannon with the self-aware quip: “Not only billionaire pedophile friend of Trump but helped Hitler. Just what I need.”
Whether the bloodline claim was true or performance, it reveals how Epstein positioned himself within the network: not as an outsider who conned his way in, but as someone who belonged — whose family had always been in the room with the Rothschilds and the Gutmanns, going back generations. That framing mattered to the people he worked for.
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The Rothschild Thread Doesn’t End in 1987
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Wexner’s references to the Rothschilds weren’t a single mention. As he testified, the family kept surfacing — enough that his attorney grew visibly agitated. This wasn’t ancient history. The Rothschild-Epstein relationship extended across three decades and multiple branches of the family.
Ariane de Rothschild, who became chair of Edmond de Rothschild Group, maintained email contact with Epstein from at least 2013 through 2018. But the relationship went far beyond correspondence.
On October 5, 2015, Epstein’s Southern Trust Company signed a Letter of Agreement with Edmond de Rothschild Holding S.A. — signed personally by Ariane de Rothschild — for a fee of $25 million. The contract was for “work specifically relating to outstanding matters between Edmond de Rothschild Holding, S.A. and the United States,” payable within three days of the bank’s payment to U.S. authorities.
Two months later, in December 2015, the Department of Justice announced that Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) SA would pay $45.4 million to avoid prosecution for helping American clients evade taxes through offshore entities.
Epstein’s fee — $25 million — was more than half the settlement itself. More than the combined legal fees paid to Kathryn Ruemmler, Obama’s former White House counsel, and the Pillsbury Winthrop law firm, who served as the bank’s actual attorneys. A convicted sex offender, unlicensed to practice law in any jurisdiction, was directing board decisions, editing DOJ submissions, and crafting legal narratives for one of the world’s oldest banking families.
When Ariane emailed Epstein after the settlement asking, “$45 million?” — it was the tone of someone who’d been coached to expect a different number.
And this was only one investigation. In 2025, Edmond de Rothschild Europe became the first Luxembourg bank ever convicted of money laundering — for its role in the 1MDB scandal, laundering hundreds of millions from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund between 2009 and 2013. The bank was fined €25 million. By 2016, as investigators closed in on 1MDB, Ariane was leaning on Epstein for guidance on DOJ perceptions.
The same emails that document the DOJ fix reveal Epstein simultaneously brokering deals between Ariane and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for “offensive cyber” startups — surveillance technology companies that could hack phones, routers, and IoT devices. The October 2015 contract between Ariane’s bank and Epstein’s Southern Trust — the same entity that funded Barak’s Reporty Homeland Security, later rebranded as Carbyne — was nominally for “risk analysis and algorithms.”
A Rothschild bank. A DOJ settlement. Israeli cyber weapons. And a convicted sex offender at the center of all three.
Epstein didn’t just work for the Rothschilds — he advertised the relationship. In a February 2016 email to Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir and patron of J.D. Vance’s political career, Epstein wrote: “As you probably know, I represent the Rothschilds.” He described a bank with $160 billion under management and “the world’s best client list” but “prehistoric products,” hoping to find a way for the bank to do something in the tech sector. He concluded with an invitation to visit his private island or meet in Saudi Arabia. Thiel invested $40 million in Epstein’s Valar Ventures funds in 2015 and 2016.
It is worth pausing to note the pattern in Epstein’s financial network. The Rothschild bank he represented was convicted of money laundering. JPMorgan, where Epstein directed billions in deposits, settled for facilitating his trafficking operation. Deutsche Bank paid $150 million for its Epstein relationship. The banks that Epstein moved between were not incidental to his operation — they were its infrastructure. And when those banks faced consequences, Epstein was the fixer who negotiated the settlements.
The Queen and the Arms Trade
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When Wexner was asked which names Epstein mentioned most frequently, the first words out of his mouth were startling: “Maybe several times. He’d mentioned the Queen of England. The one that died.”
This was not prompted. No one asked about the British royal family. Wexner volunteered it — and the next day, Prince Andrew was arrested in the United Kingdom on charges related to the Epstein files.
The connection between Epstein and the Crown runs through the same corridor that produced his career. Robert Maxwell — Ghislaine’s father, the media baron and alleged Israeli intelligence asset who sold bugged PROMIS software to governments worldwide — moved in royal circles and counted senior members of the British establishment among his connections. After his death in 1991, photographs showed Ghislaine and Epstein relaxing at Balmoral, Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish residence, as guests of Andrew. The Maxwell family’s access to the Crown predated Epstein and outlasted Robert’s death.
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Sir Evelyn de Rothschild served as Queen Elizabeth II’s personal financial advisor. He was knighted in 1989, served as an usher at her coronation. His wife, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, introduced Prince Andrew to Epstein, provided Ghislaine Maxwell with an apartment, and facilitated the sale of the townhouse that became Epstein’s New York base of operations.
But the deepest penetration of the Crown came through David Stern, a German-born investor whom Epstein introduced to Andrew and who became one of Epstein’s most frequent email correspondents — appearing thousands of times in the files, rivaling even Ariane de Rothschild in volume. Stern became so trusted within royal circles that in 2016 he was made a director of the St George’s House trust at Windsor Castle. A photograph from that year shows Stern seated directly to the left of Queen Elizabeth at an event at St James’s Palace — with Sir Evelyn de Rothschild two seats to the right of the Queen. Epstein’s man in the palace, literally beside the monarch, with the family’s banker on the other side.
Stern’s emails to Epstein reveal the full scope of the operation. He proposed opening a “small investment highly private office” that would “very discreetly make PA part of it and use his ‘aura and access.’” He forwarded confidential British government information — intelligence on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s restructuring, Aston Martin deals, investment opportunities in Afghanistan — that Andrew shared from his role as trade envoy. In one email, Stern invited Epstein’s girlfriend to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. In another, he wrote: “Will see you latest 4pm on Sunday, unless you want me to come over before for any reason, orgies, etc.” Epstein also introduced Stern to Peter Mandelson.
Prince Andrew, the Queen’s favorite son, was himself deeply embedded in the arms trade. He served as a British trade envoy with particular focus on the same Al-Yamamah deal corridor that Douglas Leese — Epstein’s 1980s mentor — had built. The Saudi-British weapons pipeline, the Rothschild banking family, and the Crown: all one system. Andrew’s arrest on February 19 — the day after Wexner named the Queen under oath — was the British pillar of the network beginning to collapse.
Sarah Ferguson, Andrew’s ex-wife, was equally embedded. Emails from the Epstein files show her calling Epstein “the brother I have always wished for” and a “supreme friend.” She reportedly celebrated his release from jail in 2009 by visiting him in New York with her young daughters. Epstein bought her British Airways flights. Her charity, Sarah’s Trust, shut down this month after the January file release. Seven other charities dropped her as patron. Six of her companies are being shuttered.
Fergie’s charity world intersected with another name in the Epstein files. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — whose name appears in more than 250 Epstein documents, who visited Epstein’s island with his family in 2012, and whose family nanny’s resume was forwarded to Epstein — hosted Ferguson and her daughters at his Cantor Fitzgerald Annual Charity Day in 2015. The charity circuit was another corridor where the royals, the network, and the money moved together.
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Google and JPMorgan: Following the Money
Wexner testified that Epstein claimed to be “providing financial advice to the founders of Google... to Jeff Bezos.” His lawyer intervened again.
The Google connection is documented. Epstein introduced JPMorgan executive Jes Staley to Sergey Brin and Larry Page. By 2003, that introduction had become a relationship. By 2011, Epstein was known within certain circles as “the advisor to the Google founders.” Brin’s JPMorgan Private Bank relationship brought in approximately $4 billion in deposits.
This wasn’t socializing. Epstein was moving Silicon Valley’s new wealth into the banking system where his networks operated — the same JPMorgan that would later settle with the U.S. Virgin Islands for $75 million over its role in facilitating Epstein’s sex trafficking operation through the bank’s accounts.
Wexner told the committee: “I believe he had substantial income from these make-believe clients that afforded him the lifestyle.” Then he corrected himself — they weren’t all make-believe. “Bank robbers don’t rob one bank,” Wexner said. He repeated it twice. “If you think I was his only victim, you’re not paying attention.”
The Rothschild-Russia Corridor
Every name Wexner dropped connects to a single infrastructure. The Rothschilds connect it to Russia.
Nathaniel Rothschild — son of Lord Jacob Rothschild — was a major investor in Oleg Deripaska’s RUSAL aluminum empire and its IPO. Nathaniel personally introduced Deripaska to British politicians, including Peter Mandelson and George Osborne, at Nathaniel’s family estate on Corfu. Deripaska is described in U.S. diplomatic cables as “among 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis.” The same Deripaska was Paul Manafort’s patron — and Manafort was Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman.
Edmond de Rothschild’s Luxembourg operation managed the fortune of Russian oil magnate Sergey Bogdanchikov, who later sued claiming the bank siphoned $75 million of his $150 million.
And Epstein operated his own Russia channel. Emails from the Epstein files document him architecting a backchannel between Ehud Barak and the Kremlin through Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian-Israeli oligarch. Barak served as a consultant to Vekselberg’s Renova Group at $1 million quarterly, reporting to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov to arrange meetings with Putin. Epstein connected Barak to Vekselberg, arranged the Renova deal, and coached the messaging — including the cryptic instruction: “do not go to number 1 too quickly.”
Epstein also cultivated Sergei Belyakov, a former Russian Deputy Minister with FSB links, to collect information and arrange access to Russian power. After Barak attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2015, he emailed Epstein: “Thx for (setting) the whole thing together.”
The Mandelson Node
If there is one figure who embodies the convergence of every thread in this network, it is Peter Mandelson — the former British Cabinet minister and Labour grandee who, as of this month, has been dismissed as British Ambassador to the United States, resigned from the Labour Party and the House of Lords, and is under Met Police criminal investigation for misconduct in public office. Three of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s senior aides have resigned over his appointment. Members of Parliament have stated publicly that “Peter Mandelson helped Jeffrey Epstein and his associates to make money. That money was used to run Mr Epstein’s paedophilic prostitution ring.”
Nathaniel Rothschild introduced Mandelson to Deripaska on a yacht near the Rothschild estate on Corfu. Mandelson flew on Deripaska’s jet, holidayed on his yacht, and oversaw EU aluminum tariff cuts that benefited Deripaska’s RUSAL while serving as European Trade Commissioner. On his first week as Trade Commissioner in 2004, Mandelson flew on Deripaska’s plane to an EU-Russia summit where Putin led Russia’s delegation. Deripaska’s head of security arranged Mandelson’s swift Moscow visa the following year.
Epstein’s emails, released this month, reveal that Mandelson and a business partner attempted to secure Epstein a last-minute Russian visa through Deripaska — described in the correspondence as a “friend of Putin” — in November 2010. Mandelson was the bridge: he connected Epstein to Russian power through the same oligarch the Rothschilds had introduced him to.
The same Mandelson, while serving as British Business Secretary, fed Epstein market-moving government intelligence. On May 9, 2010, Mandelson emailed Epstein: “Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost complete.” The next morning, European governments approved the €500 billion bailout. In a separate message the same month, Mandelson emailed Epstein: “Finally got him to go today” — claiming credit for forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s resignation from office. Epstein replied: “I have faith, the value of some chapters in your book should now increase.”
A member of the British government fed a convicted sex offender advance knowledge of a €500 billion financial decision — and boasted to the same sex offender about toppling a sitting prime minister. And the bridge between Mandelson and Epstein was the same bridge between the Rothschilds and Russia: Oleg Deripaska.
Prince Andrew and Mandelson operated in the same British establishment orbit — royals and senior Labour figures who shared the same networks, the same social circuits, and the same exposure to Epstein. Andrew was the arms trade corridor. Mandelson was the political and intelligence corridor. Epstein moved between both, and the Rothschilds banked them all. When Andrew was arrested on February 19 — the day after Wexner named the Queen under oath — it was not just one man falling. It was the British pillar of the network beginning to collapse. Mandelson’s dismissal, his criminal investigation, the resignation of Starmer’s aides — all of it follows the same fault line.
The Man Who Drew the Map
Les Wexner is not the architect of this network. He has been, for decades, the convenient explanation — the single billionaire from whom “all the money came.” That story served everyone else in the system. It kept the Rothschilds, the royal family, the tech billionaires, the Russian oligarchs, and the intelligence services out of the frame.
Wexner’s testimony cracked that frame open.
“A lot of people, very, very wealthy people Jeffrey Epstein worked for,” Wexner told the committee. “Very well-heeled, sophisticated families and companies.” Then he named them. One by one. While his lawyer panicked. While someone texted the kill signal. While the names piled up on a congressional record that cannot be sealed.
The network Wexner described is not a conspiracy theory. It is a financial architecture — Rothschild banking connecting European old money to Russian oligarch wealth, Israeli surveillance technology, British government secrets, American tech fortunes, and Saudi arms deals. Jeffrey Epstein did not build this architecture. He operated within it, as a fixer, a broker, and ultimately as the leverage that held it all together.
Now the same architecture operates through different instruments — tariff schemes instead of arms deals, cryptocurrency instead of offshore trusts, family trusts instead of slush funds — but through the same network of people, in the same positions of power.
Wexner, at 88, decided to draw the map. His lawyer tried to stop him. Someone watching on their phone tried to stop him. None of them succeeded.
The names are on the record now. And every one of them leads somewhere.
Zev Shalev is the founder of Narativ and creator of The Greatest Heist investigation. The Epstein Archive contains 83,000+ documents available for research at narativ.org.
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