[Epstein's Ghost] Jeffrey Epstein and the Anti-Communist Covert Operations World
https://redlib.catsarch.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1suk45c/jeffrey_epstein_and_the_anticommunist_covert/
> We're all familiar with the standard question about Jeffrey Epstein. How did a college dropout who briefly taught math at a prep school end up controlling a private island, multiple mansions, a Boeing 727, and hundreds of millions in assets? One part of the answer is that he was involved with anti-communist covert operations.
>
> **The Associates**
>
> After leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, [Epstein opened a one-man consultancy: the Intercontinental Assets Group](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-jeffrey-epsteins-intelligence-ties-go-back-decades), offering offshore asset protection to high-net-worth clients.
>
> He built two key professional relationships.
>
> * British defense contractor Sir Douglas Leese, [who was accused of brokering a $1.3 billion arms sale from Chinese state manufacturer Norinco to Iran in 1983](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602033927). According to Steven Hoffenberg, a close Epstein associate, Leese personally trained Epstein in arms brokering, shell company creation, and money laundering. Leese later [claimed ](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling)in US civil litigation he believed his projects to be "classified by the Department of Defense and other agencies." His mutual associate with Epstein was Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer at the financial center of Iran-Contra.
> * J. Stanley Pottinger, a former senior Justice Department official who had been under FBI investigation for helping an Iranian banker, Cyrus Hashemi, circumvent the US arms embargo against Iran using phony invoices and overseas dummy companies. ("Pottinger escaped prosecution after the FBI’s incriminating tapes of his conversations [mysteriously disappeared](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling); he went on to [make a fortune on real estate deals](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/us/politics/j-stanley-pottinger-dead.html) in the 1980s, and became a New York Times’ bestselling novelist.") This was happening at the same time Pottinger and Epstein shared a penthouse office on Central Park South, pitching "tax avoidance strategies" to wealthy clients. Pottinger's scheme for Hashemi became the prototype for the CIA's covert arms pipeline to Iran, whose profits were then illegally diverted to fund the Contra insurgency against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
>
> **Southern Air Transport**
>
> [Southern Air Transport (SAT)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Air_Transport) was founded in 1947. The same year, the OSS became the CIA. The Agency owned it outright from 1960 to 1973, using it across Southeast Asia as part of a network of proprietary carriers that included Air America. By the mid-1980s under Oliver North, SAT was flying American weapons to Iran via Israel and using the profits to arm the Contras, even after Congress had passed the [Boland Amendment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boland_Amendment) specifically to prohibit federal funds from reaching the Nicaraguan insurgency. In October 1986, one of SAT's C-123Ks was shot down over Nicaragua. Its sole survivor, Eugene Hasenfus, gave testimony that unraveled Iran-Contra and surfaced allegations of Contra cocaine trafficking into the United States.
>
> In 1995, SAT relocated to Columbus, Ohio, where the headquarters of Leslie Wexner's retail empire, The Limited Inc. (Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch), then the largest fashion retailer in the United States, was located. [Its new civilian purpose was to fly twice-weekly freighters from Hong Kong to Columbus, feeding The Limited's supply chain](https://freepress.org/article/spook-air) (could be anything from lingerie to teen models, ugh). The relocation came with substantial Ohio state support: a $6 million low-interest loan, a $500,000 development grant, $10 million in federal transport spending, and $30 million in revenue bonds. Wexner-connected figures actively lobbied for the deal.
>
> As is well known, Epstein held sweeping power of attorney over Wexner's entire business empire at the time. Investigative journalist Bob Fitrakis, drawing on sources inside the Franklin County Sheriff's Office and Ohio's Office of Inspector General, identified Epstein as having played a pivotal role in brokering the SAT relocation. Both offices were investigating SAT's Iran-Contra connections; [both inquiries were discontinued under pressure from the governor's office](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling). SAT filed for bankruptcy on October 1, 1998. Exactly one week later, the CIA Inspector General released its findings linking the airline to Contra cocaine trafficking.
>
> **This is actually the best explanation for Epstein's impunity**
>
> The 2008 Florida plea deal, in which US Attorney Alexander Acosta gave Epstein immunity for uncharged federal crimes, extended that immunity to unnamed co-conspirators, and negotiated everything in secret in violation of the Crime Victims' Rights Act, goes well beyond what class privilege normally buys. Acosta later told colleagues he had been told Epstein "[belonged to intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Acosta)" and to leave it alone.
> It's called the Epstein class for a reason. People sometimes criticize the term "Epstein class", because they think it "reduces" what the bourgeoisie does to what Epstein did. But the opposite is true. It points to the fact that they're all like him.
> We're all familiar with the standard question about Jeffrey Epstein. How did a college dropout who briefly taught math at a prep school end up controlling a private island, multiple mansions, a Boeing 727, and hundreds of millions in assets? One part of the answer is that he was involved with anti-communist covert operations.
>
> **The Associates**
>
> After leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, [Epstein opened a one-man consultancy: the Intercontinental Assets Group](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-jeffrey-epsteins-intelligence-ties-go-back-decades), offering offshore asset protection to high-net-worth clients.
>
> He built two key professional relationships.
>
> * British defense contractor Sir Douglas Leese, [who was accused of brokering a $1.3 billion arms sale from Chinese state manufacturer Norinco to Iran in 1983](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602033927). According to Steven Hoffenberg, a close Epstein associate, Leese personally trained Epstein in arms brokering, shell company creation, and money laundering. Leese later [claimed ](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling)in US civil litigation he believed his projects to be "classified by the Department of Defense and other agencies." His mutual associate with Epstein was Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer at the financial center of Iran-Contra.
> * J. Stanley Pottinger, a former senior Justice Department official who had been under FBI investigation for helping an Iranian banker, Cyrus Hashemi, circumvent the US arms embargo against Iran using phony invoices and overseas dummy companies. ("Pottinger escaped prosecution after the FBI’s incriminating tapes of his conversations [mysteriously disappeared](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling); he went on to [make a fortune on real estate deals](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/29/us/politics/j-stanley-pottinger-dead.html) in the 1980s, and became a New York Times’ bestselling novelist.") This was happening at the same time Pottinger and Epstein shared a penthouse office on Central Park South, pitching "tax avoidance strategies" to wealthy clients. Pottinger's scheme for Hashemi became the prototype for the CIA's covert arms pipeline to Iran, whose profits were then illegally diverted to fund the Contra insurgency against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government.
>
> **Southern Air Transport**
>
> [Southern Air Transport (SAT)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Air_Transport) was founded in 1947. The same year, the OSS became the CIA. The Agency owned it outright from 1960 to 1973, using it across Southeast Asia as part of a network of proprietary carriers that included Air America. By the mid-1980s under Oliver North, SAT was flying American weapons to Iran via Israel and using the profits to arm the Contras, even after Congress had passed the [Boland Amendment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boland_Amendment) specifically to prohibit federal funds from reaching the Nicaraguan insurgency. In October 1986, one of SAT's C-123Ks was shot down over Nicaragua. Its sole survivor, Eugene Hasenfus, gave testimony that unraveled Iran-Contra and surfaced allegations of Contra cocaine trafficking into the United States.
>
> In 1995, SAT relocated to Columbus, Ohio, where the headquarters of Leslie Wexner's retail empire, The Limited Inc. (Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch), then the largest fashion retailer in the United States, was located. [Its new civilian purpose was to fly twice-weekly freighters from Hong Kong to Columbus, feeding The Limited's supply chain](https://freepress.org/article/spook-air) (could be anything from lingerie to teen models, ugh). The relocation came with substantial Ohio state support: a $6 million low-interest loan, a $500,000 development grant, $10 million in federal transport spending, and $30 million in revenue bonds. Wexner-connected figures actively lobbied for the deal.
>
> As is well known, Epstein held sweeping power of attorney over Wexner's entire business empire at the time. Investigative journalist Bob Fitrakis, drawing on sources inside the Franklin County Sheriff's Office and Ohio's Office of Inspector General, identified Epstein as having played a pivotal role in brokering the SAT relocation. Both offices were investigating SAT's Iran-Contra connections; [both inquiries were discontinued under pressure from the governor's office](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-iran-contra-planes-leslie-wexner-pottinger-leese-arms-weapons-smuggling). SAT filed for bankruptcy on October 1, 1998. Exactly one week later, the CIA Inspector General released its findings linking the airline to Contra cocaine trafficking.
>
> **This is actually the best explanation for Epstein's impunity**
>
> The 2008 Florida plea deal, in which US Attorney Alexander Acosta gave Epstein immunity for uncharged federal crimes, extended that immunity to unnamed co-conspirators, and negotiated everything in secret in violation of the Crime Victims' Rights Act, goes well beyond what class privilege normally buys. Acosta later told colleagues he had been told Epstein "[belonged to intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Acosta)" and to leave it alone.
> It's called the Epstein class for a reason. People sometimes criticize the term "Epstein class", because they think it "reduces" what the bourgeoisie does to what Epstein did. But the opposite is true. It points to the fact that they're all like him.