Jeffrey Epstein tried to buy a luxury palace days before his arrest

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Charles Schwab wired about $27.7 million on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein to a realtor in Morocco as the disgraced financier tried to purchase a palace in the 10 days before his 2019 arrest, including one transfer from an account which lacked sufficient funds, files released by the U.S. Department of Justice show.

Details of the transactions, reported by Reuters for the first time, show how the U.S. brokerage handled funds for Epstein over the course of several months at a time when he was under intense public scrutiny after reports in the Miami Herald in 2018.

Schwab flagged the payments in a suspicious activity report (SAR) to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on July 13, seven days after Epstein's arrest, the documents show.

An examination of more than a hundred documents shows Schwab opened three accounts for Epstein's companies in April 2019, including one for Southern Trust, a business that was attempting to buy the opulent Bin Ennakhil palace in Marrakesh, Morocco.

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