How US commerce secretary's Epstein links were uncovered by British whistleblower
Image: BBC News
A British man has told the BBC how he unearthed evidence suggesting his former employer, Howard Lutnick - now US commerce secretary - failed to disclose a business relationship with the convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Simon Andriesz, a former managing director at Wall Street firm BGC Partners, discovered a 2018 email chain in which Lutnick and Epstein discussed the prospects of a start-up they were both involved in. He shared his findings from the released Epstein files with the influential House Oversight Committee ahead of Lutnick's appearance there in May.
Lutnick told the committee that, to the best of his knowledge, he had only learned this year that Epstein had been an investor in the firm. The US Commerce Department said there was no evidence of wrongdoing. Democrats on the committee accused him of lying and demanded his resignation.
Andriesz found the emails by searching the 3.5 million released documents for Lutnick's initials "HWL" rather than his name. Epstein had written directly to the account asking about the prospects of a digital advertising firm, Adfin, in which both had invested. Lutnick replied that it was "producing revenue finally".
He also uncovered documents showing Lutnick's firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had drawn up a 2013 plan to lend £1m to the then-Prince Andrew's company and bind him to do business exclusively with it - what Andriesz calls an attempt "to buy a prince". Cantor Fitzgerald did not deny the talks but said no deal was struck.
Now 57 and living in Cornwall, Andriesz says a decade of litigation has devastated his career and health, despite a $420,000 whistleblower award. Speaking for Lutnick, the White House dismissed the BBC reporting as a "pathetic and desperate attempt to slander" the commerce secretary.