If the latest information about Jeffrey Epstein is accurate, the dead financier didn’t just have ties to the CIA. He allegedly brokered gun-running and other illicit deals for the Langley-based intelligence agency and others—first as a junior broker at Wall Street’s Bear Stearns, and later through the disgraced Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
While such connections have long been speculated about—most notably in Whitney Webb’s One Nation Under Blackmail, Volumes One and Two—former Trump-era State Department lawyer Mike Benz says this is the first time he has seen evidence that Bear Stearns, which collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis and was later acquired by JPMorgan Chase, was “actively clearing BCCI trades and laundering weapons payments during the very years Epstein worked there.”
The BCCI was a notorious bank that operated as a global, clandestine banking system for international spy agencies. BCCI is reputed to have been involved in "some of the most sensitive intelligence operations of the Reagan-Bush years." The bank was closed in the early 1990s due to its shady connections.
Benz has speculated before that Epstein's ties to intelligence agencies came from his proximity to the Iran-Contra affair, but recent information connects the financier and human trafficker to intelligence agencies before and after the secret — and illegal — deal to sell arms to embargoed Iran and then use the money to help the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The CIA's Southern Air Transport is also connected.
In a video, which you can see below, Benz goes through recent stories and patterns of associations that he believes link Epstein to the so-called "Safari Club," a consortium of spy agencies and gun runners that included figures such as Adnan Khashoggi Those deals, he believes, would also explain Epstein's vast source of wealth.
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The Safari Club was a gauzy, pre-1976 alliance of spy agencies believed to be comprised of pre-revolutionary Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, France, and the American CIA, with tangential links to Israeli intelligence.
This is it. The key to Epstein: Bear Stearns put him on BCCI trades in 1979, as it made millions helping the CIA, Brits, Saudis & Israelis disguise covert cash by clearing $13 billion with BCCI, a CIA money laundering bank. Epstein simply developed that clientele & career niche. pic.twitter.com/HcXZJYr0LG
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) December 20, 2025
Benz believes Epstein went out on his own after leaving Bear Stearns and ran all of his intelligence deals through BCCI. Those intelligence ties are believed to explain why, when Epstein was busted for his underage human trafficking sex slavery ring, then-Florida U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta is alleged to have said that he gave Epstein a sweetheart plea deal because "he belonged to intelligence."
Benz cited a recent New York Times report that broke down some, but not all, of the intelligence connections. Indeed, the paper said that at Bear Stearns, "Epstein was in fact not a normal employee." But rather than attributing his wealth to intelligence ties or to his role as a financial operative moving money for global intelligence agencies, the newspaper concluded that it came from Epstein being a “prodigious manipulator and liar.”
Both can be true.
The New York Times wasn't buying it, however.
Abundant conspiracy theories hold that Epstein worked for spy services or ran a lucrative blackmail operation, but we found a more prosaic explanation for how he built a fortune. A relentless scammer, he abused expense accounts, engineered inside deals and demonstrated a remarkable knack for separating seemingly sophisticated investors and businessmen from their money.
The Times contends that Epstein used women, and eventually underage females, as deal sweeteners on Wall Street. The Times believes Epstein's eventual financial dealings with Les Wexner, "the billionaire who built brands like the Limited and Victoria’s Secret," began after "the two were introduced by Wexner’s friend Robert Meister, an insurance executive who happened to sit next to Epstein on the plane to Palm Beach. Meister suggested that Wexner get in touch with Epstein for financial advice."
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After that, Epstein was a made man.
Benz doesn't believe it was that prosaic, however. He picked apart the New York Times piece published earlier this month by connecting former Bear Stearns CEO Ace Greenberg to Epstein — which, he says, "explains everything."
Guys, we just broke the entire Jeffrey Epstein story. It explains Jeffrey Epstein's meteoric rise. It explains how he moved up in the company so quickly. It explains why everyone was so charmed by him. Hint, not because of his charm. It explains how he got all these huge clients so quickly. It explains how he in 1981 in 1982 he's already meeting with major CIA, MI6, Saudi intelligence officials. He's meeting with Doug Lee, Stan Pottinger, Adnan Khashoggi , Middle Eastern sheiks.
He believes Epstein was working intelligence deals before he left Bear Stearns and later on his own through BCCI.
It's all very intriguing. Watch and see if you don't agree.
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