How did Epstein make his money?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
The tentacles of Epstein’s billionaire paedophile ring crossed continents, age, political persuasion and profession. That much is all clear from the files. But what we are still piecing together is how Epstein made his millions in the first place. Was it endowed? Stolen? Invested? Or blackmail?
This Friday, Jon and Emily speak to American journalist, Anand Giridharadas, about the 'Epstein class' and how it was allowed to flourish. And ask whether it still exists?
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.4 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.8 | This Epstein class as a whole, I think, if you look at the way it operates, you start to |
| 0:18.1 | understand a lot about your life. |
| 0:20.7 | You start to understand a lot about why life. You start to understand a lot about why your |
| 0:22.9 | life goes the way it goes, why your kid's education is in the paltry condition it may be in, |
| 0:29.6 | why your health care is threadbare. You start to realize that you're down there swimming downstream |
| 0:35.3 | just trying to make it through, and that upstream, |
| 0:38.3 | these are the people, these are the decision makers in many cases, these are the powerful elites |
| 0:42.8 | who shape your life. And you start to see the character, the morality, the ways of thinking, |
| 0:49.3 | the sense of human disposability that prevails in that Epstein class. |
| 0:54.6 | That is Anand Ghiradas, journalist, author, who has studied the Epstein files and has tried to |
| 1:01.3 | work out where the tentacles extend in this powerful group of people who were very wealthy, |
| 1:07.6 | who were hugely influential, and who were somehow bound together with Epstein |
| 1:12.2 | at the centre. The enduring question always comes back to how Epstein got rich. Was it blackmail? |
| 1:19.2 | Was it fraud? Was it brilliance? How did he entangle so many others in that web? Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:26.9 | Music many others in that web. Welcome to the news agents. The news agents. Well, joining us now, |
| 1:35.3 | Anand Kier Dadas, who has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and now publishes |
| 1:41.1 | The Inc, which essentially investigates money, power, politics, culture, |
| 1:46.7 | who you'll hear speaking about the Epstein class a lot. In fact, he's publishing a series of deep dive |
| 1:53.5 | articles with that name. And just yesterday, we saw a moment that actually left a lot of people |
| 2:00.5 | scrabbling for words in the UK, |
... |
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