00:00Even in death, the secrets of Jeffrey Epstein remain tightly guarded, but earlier this year,
00:04I spearheaded a wired investigation that uncovered the data of almost 200 mobile phones belonging
00:09to visitors to his infamous pedophile island.
00:12The data was so precise, we were able to map the paths of these visitors to within centimeters,
00:17including their neighborhoods, buildings of origin, and the paths they took to get to
00:20the island.
00:22These digital trails document the numerous trips of wealthy and influential individuals
00:26seemingly undeterred by Epstein's status as a convicted sex vendor.
00:30Wired's analysis of the data is ongoing, and it raises profound questions about privacy
00:34and surveillance.
00:36This is Epstein Island's secret data, on the grid.
00:41This is Little St. James, aka Epstein Island.
00:45These red dots on the map represent some of the 11,279 coordinates I obtained.
00:50They were left exposed online by a location data broker with ties to the Defense Department
00:54called Near Intelligence, now known as Xera.
00:57Between 2016 and Epstein's final arrest in 2019, Near collected data on more than
01:03200 cell phones that visited the island.
01:05We don't know why they did that, or which client, or prospective client, of Near decided
01:09to query the data in this way, to produce the maps.
01:13But the maps you'll see in this video show where visitors to Epstein Island spent most
01:17of their time.
01:18Let's take a step back.
01:19You might be wondering, where is Epstein Island, anyways?
01:22Well it's here.
01:23Little St. James is a private island that is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, an unincorporated
01:28territory of the United States in the Caribbean Sea.
01:31Epstein purchased Little St. James in 1998 for $7.95 million.
01:36It's about 71 acres, the size of 54 football fields.
01:40He made the island his primary residence and soon after began welcoming visitors, and throwing
01:44infamous parties where he was accused of having groomed, sexually assaulted, and trafficked
01:49untold numbers of women and girls.
01:51The maps of the data collected by Near, and which we at Wired recreated here, indicate
01:56the most visited spots on the island.
01:58From the main house here with the pool, to the beaches and the large sundial, it's all
02:03on display, including the enigmatic Hilltop Temple site over here, which has been the
02:08focal point in speculations about Epstein's mysterious activities on the island.
02:13But the tracking of phones wasn't contained at Little St. James.
02:16Surveillance continued long after the visitors left.
02:19The data reveals the locations of visitors 30 minutes before and after arriving on the
02:24island, which shows us the exact routes everyone took to get there.
02:28Some landed here, at the Cyril E. King Airport on neighboring St. Thomas Island.
02:33With its private jet and VIP terminals, it was the go-to hub for Epstein's 200-seater
02:38Boeing 727 plane dubbed Lolita Express.
02:42We see data points clustered at various area beaches, hotels, and luxury resorts, including
02:47the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here.
02:49To get to Epstein's island, many visitors got on a boat at a designated dock at the
02:54American Yacht Harbor, a private marina on St. Thomas co-owned by Epstein at the time.
02:59From there, we see a flow of movement through Great St. James Island, the larger island
03:03just to the north, which Epstein purchased in 2016 for $22 million.
03:08He had hoped to develop it, but was met with legal challenges after damaging the island's
03:12coral reefs and protected habitats.
03:15The data then traces visitors' movements as they were ferried to Epstein's private
03:19dock on Little St. James.
03:21Epstein also had a helipad on the island, and owned at least one helicopter, a Sikorsky
03:25S-76, which he used often to transport himself, guests, and victims from the airport or elsewhere,
03:32according to legal documents and testimony.
03:34It's worth noting that the data reveals a regular flow of traffic to and from Little
03:38St. James between 2016 and 2019.
03:41A lot of people were visiting the island even after Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008
03:46and served jail time for procuring a minor for prostitution.
03:50If we keep following the data trail and we widen our view, we'll see that the tracking
03:54of visitors continues once they have left the island and presumably gone back home.
03:58The near-intelligence data we uncovered pinpoints 166 locations throughout the United States
04:04and 80 cities across 26 states.
04:07Topping the list were Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, Michigan, and New York.
04:13The data points are labeled as common evening locations or common daytime locations, typically
04:18their homes or work.
04:20Many of the visitors were likely wealthy, as indicated by coordinates pointing to gated
04:24communities in Michigan, as well as homes in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts.
04:29We even have data points from a downtown Miami nightclub, and also the sidewalk across the
04:34street from Trump Tower in New York City.
04:36Before we jump to conclusions, some sources have highlighted interactions between Donald
04:40Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at social events.
04:42But after Epstein's 2008 conviction, there are no verified reports of Trump maintaining
04:47a relationship with the convicted pedophile.
04:50Take a look at this point over here in New Mexico.
04:52This is a property that was owned by Epstein, a secluded 8,000-acre ranch.
04:57Another property of Epstein's is seen over here on El Brio Way in Palm Beach, Florida.
05:02This waterfront mansion was sold, demolished, and is now being rebuilt, but it was where
05:06prosecutors claimed Epstein trafficked numerous underage girls with the intention of molesting
05:11and abusing them.
05:12But we don't just see the coordinates of wealthy homes amongst the data.
05:15The median household income of Palm Beach is more than twice that of nearby communities
05:19where we also see data points.
05:22Some of these points could represent victims or employees who worked on the island, which
05:25is why we're careful about revealing names and continue to carefully analyze the data.
05:29If we zoom out more, we notice something strange.
05:33There are no data points anywhere in Europe.
05:35Does this mean it was strictly Americans visiting Jeffrey Epstein on his island?
05:39No.
05:40We do see data points from the cache identifying origin cities in Australia, the Cayman Islands,
05:45and way over here in Kyiv in Ukraine.
05:47We know that Epstein himself had a place in Paris, and we know from victim testimony and
05:52flight logs that his associate, Jean-Luc Brunel, owner of a modeling agency in Paris, did visit
05:57the island.
05:58So why don't we see these data points?
06:00One possibility could be Europe's extensive privacy laws.
06:04Considered the strongest privacy and security law in the world, the General Data Protection
06:08Regulation, GDPR, gives Europeans robust rights to their personal data, even outside of Europe.
06:15Under comparatively lax U.S. privacy laws, Near Intelligence was able to source its location
06:20data for this precision surveillance.
06:22To explain how this data might have been collected in the first place, we need to talk about
06:26the world of digital advertising and data brokers.
06:28The reason you get a targeted ad displayed on an app or a website is because apps on
06:32your phone have been transmitting information about you to ad exchanges and real-time bidding
06:37platforms.
06:38That information often includes your location data.
06:40Data brokers like Near Intelligence extract, repackage, analyze, and sell the data from
06:45these ad platforms.
06:47In fact, according to internal company documents from 2019, Near Intelligence, which has roots
06:53in Singapore and Bengaluru, India, claimed to have information on around 1.6 billion
06:58people in 44 countries.
07:00They offer a platform for searching that allows their clients to query their vast dataset
07:04by drawing a box around a specific area like Little St. James.
07:08Near then provides insights about the devices it observed within the selected area.
07:13We don't know who or why someone searched Epstein Island, but the reports and maps they
07:17created were sitting unprotected and totally searchable as publicly accessible code.
07:21And that's where we found them.
07:23And those aren't the only Near Intelligence datasets that we found.
07:27Google's web crawlers were able to locate at least two other reports, one geofencing
07:31the Westfield Mall in the Netherlands and another targeting a park in El Paso, Texas.
07:37This is data unrelated to our investigation about Epstein Island, but it shows how unsafe
07:41personal data can be.
07:43In some cases, it's just a Google search away.
07:45So pro tip, if you don't want your personal data swimming around in the murky waters of
07:49programmatic advertising, make sure you limit ad tracking on your phone, disable location
07:54services and third-party cookies, and use an ad blocker.
07:58So what happened to the island after Epstein reportedly committed suicide in a Manhattan
08:02federal jail while awaiting trial for sex trafficking?
08:04Well, in May of 2023, billionaire investor Stephen Deekhoff purchased both Little St.
08:09James and Great St. James for $60 million.
08:13He's currently building a luxury resort on Little St. James that he says could open as
08:16early as 2025.
08:18Also, Ghislaine Maxwell, former British socialite and Epstein accomplice, was convicted in 2021
08:24on five counts, including sex trafficking of minors by force.
08:27Maxwell was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, tracked to a million-dollar home by federal
08:32agents using location data pulled from her cell phone.
08:36I'm Dhruv Marotra.
08:37The Wired investigation into the secret data of Epstein's island continues.
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