Epstein Forums

A leading Senate Democrat is calling on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to provide information on a long-running — and long secret — investigation into possible drug trafficking and suspicious financial transactions involving Jeffrey Epstein and 14 alleged co-conspirators. CBS News first reported Monday on the existence of the case, based on a heavily redacted 69-page DEA memo found in the Epstein files.

"In addition to sex trafficking, it appears that Epstein and his associates were under investigation by the DEA for other major crimes, including illicit drug trafficking and money laundering," Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, says in a letter to DEA Administrator Terrance C. Cole.

The DEA memo, marked "sensitive but unclassified," was among more than 3 million pages of documents recently released by the Justice Department.

The memo, from 2015, refers to a DEA Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces probe nicknamed "Chain Reaction." It noted that the case was opened in 2010 in New York and was "judicial pending," indicating that the investigation remained active at the time the memo was drafted 5 years later.

The co-conspirators, it said, were being investigated for "illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York City,"

"The fact that Epstein was under investigation by the DOJ's OCDETF task force suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy," Wyden writes. "This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled."