In the spring of 2015, Jes Staley left for the Caribbean to visit a wealthy client. At the time, the banker worked for the US money house JP Morgan and looked after Jeffrey Epstein, who was happy to invite them to his private island Little Saint James for business meetings. Not only did work lunches take place there, but also evidently criminal offenses. Epstein is said to have abused underage girls in his home in the American Virgin Islands. After his arrest in the summer of 2019, the convicted sex offender was found dead in his prison cell. Since then, investigators around the world have been investigating Epstein’s connections.
One of them leads to Jes Staley, who eight months after his last visit to Epstein’s Caribbean island took over the head of the British bank Barclays. Now his Epstein connection has cost him the job. Barclays announced on Monday that the bank had been briefed on Friday evening of preliminary investigations by British regulators into the Staley-Epstein connection. In view of these findings and Staley’s intention to challenge them, the bank and the manager have agreed that he will resign from his position as CEO.
In the announcement, Barclays noted that there was no evidence in the investigation by the FCA and banking regulator PRA that Staley saw or was aware of any of the alleged Epstein crimes. The authorities’ procedure has not yet been completed. It is therefore not appropriate to comment further on the preliminary results.
The banker is said to have even visited Epstein in prison
Staley has headed Barclays since December 2015. He was targeted by British regulators last year. Ever since then, the question has been how honest Staley had been in his descriptions of his contact with Epstein. According to a report by the New York Times From 2019, Epstein is said to have not only been advised by Staley. He is also believed to have referred dozens of wealthy clients to the banker while he was running JP Morgan’s private banking business. In 2008, Staley reportedly even visited Epstein in prison after pleading guilty to forcing a minor into prostitution.
Last year, due to the investigation by the British regulatory authorities, there was speculation that Staley would resign. the Financial Times had reported at the time that JP Morgan had sent the British overseers e-mails between Epstein and Staley from his time with the US money house. Critical Barclays shareholders then loudly demanded the resignation of the 64-year-old.
Now the time has come. The news of Staley’s departure did not go down well on the London Stock Exchange. The Barclays share temporarily lost two percent at the beginning of the week. It didn’t help that the bank had already named a successor to Staley: CS Venkatakrishnan, previously Head of Global Markets at Barclays.