Chilling, but...I think you're onto something, there:
He could have taken the whole mountain of filthy lucre, dumped it into an ETF, then beaten most of the legit funds out there, then rebuffed all client requests for more info.
Then he would have taken his free time and devoted it all to more scouting, bringing in new amazing girls, and roping in new rich victims at parties intro'd to him by his celebrity friends.
Then he'd sometimes cut "philanthrophist checks" to research causes he pretended to be fascinated by, the better to generate magazine and WSJ puff pieces about him and raise more investor interest, resulting in a self-sustaining positive feedback loop.
He was a pervvy/blackmail-y Wizard of Oz --take no notice of the man behind the curtain.
“Well if you are being blackmailed, you can’t really explain why you are paying millions of dollars to some guy who shows up out of nowhere, and the guy who shows up out of nowhere can’t explain why he’s suddenly being paid huge sums.
So instead of paying him hush money you give him money to manage for you, and then he takes his management fee typical for hedge funds.
He figures this scheme out and then learns who the marks are”
GUESS where Esptein got the List Of Marks..?
From Les Wexner, his old mentor genius who started Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria Secret, The Limited, Guess Jeans, etc. the older guy who sheparded Epstein into the darker reaches of their shared hobby.
The other day CrazyDaysAndNights dot net stated that Wexner found himself finally married up to a woman he found he no longer loved; it was via Wexner's relationship with his younger, more virile pervvy friend that Wexner met and began a long affair with a younger woman who reinvigorated Wexner, gave his long life new meaning.
So Wexner was grateful to Epstein and sold Epstein his Manhatten residence --the biggest private residence on Manhatten Island-- for the grand sum of ONE DOLLAR.
Yes, a then $66M piece of real estate for the price of a candy bar.
Wexner is much older, had longstanding contacts in the billionaire community and in the smaller clutch of wealthy people with purient interests not easily satisfied:
Hair-twirling, giggly p*ssy wearing braces and bobby socks, selling girl scout cookies in front of the grocery store. Or, more darkly, Cub Scout boy butt p*ssy.
In the course of his girl fashion biz, Wexner had many years to casually learn who was like him. In order to monetize his knowledge and help his younger friend, Wexner turned that data over to his younger ambitious darkly-hobbied friend. Wexner already had a client list in his head, he simply had to hand it over to his friend.
Maybe Wexner even got a cut of the action..? Dunno, probably not. Plus, foreign goverments or the Mega Group would also be interested, if they needed sudden favors for intel ops pronto, no questions asked; moving money around, opening accounts, etc.
Epstein’s “genius investing talent” is simply his management of a deeply average investment fund populated by deep-pocketed people who permitted themselves to be ensnared in his trap. Epstein might even have dumped all the money into a simple ETF instead of picking each investment issue himself, saving tons of time.