Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier, was a college dropout who managed to amass a fortune

that's difficult to explain, before dying mysteriously in his jail cell in 2019.

He wasn't a rapper like P Diddy, yet he owned two private islands, multiple private jets,

and homes all over the world. He befriended presidents, princes,

scientists, celebrities, businessmen and billionaires, and was described by prosecutors in 2019

as a man of nearly infinite means. Yet despite years of investigations, no one can say with certainty

how he made his money. Bloomberg

wrote after his arrest in 2019 that for all his infamy, there are scant details of how he

made his money. The F.T. similarly wrote around the same time that this question has confounded

journalists for decades. Given his links

to big names and the subsequent allegations against him, there's been major public interest

in the life and the wealth of Jeffrey Epstein, along with his crimes and the network of

influential enablers that surrounded him. Epstein was born in Brooklyn, the son of a groundskeeper and a stay-at-home mom.

He graduated high school and briefly attended Cooper Union and NYU, before dropping out of both.

After falsely claiming to have a college degree, he briefly taught math and physics at a private

high school in New York, before being dismissed after two years for poor performance.

He went on to work for a few years at Bear Stearns, and after being laid off, claimed to be

running a money management firm for the ultra-wealthy.

His firm's operations were opaque, its client list never disclosed and its assets never verified.

He had only one confirmed client and everything else is a fog of speculation, secretive

offshore companies, whispered blackmail theories, and a social

circle that included everyone from US presidents to British royalty.

...