Uncovering Epstein Island's Hidden Visitor Data Secrets

The "WIRED" investigation reveals precise digital trails of visitors to Epstein's Island, raising significant privacy concerns.

### Uncovering the Secrets of Epstein Island: A Deep Dive into Location Data
* 🔍 Even after his death, Jeffrey Epstein's secrets remain concealed, but a "WIRED" investigation revealed data from **nearly 200 mobile phones** that visited his infamous island, **Little St. James**.
* 📊 This data allowed for precise mapping of visitor paths, revealing their **origins and movements**, raising significant concerns about **privacy and surveillance**.
* 📍 The investigation uncovered **11,279 coordinates** linked to visitors, collected by Near Intelligence, a data broker with ties to the **Defense Department**, between 2016 and Epstein's arrest in 2019.
* 🏝 Little St. James, a 71-acre private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, was purchased by Epstein for **$7.95 million** in 1998, where he hosted numerous parties and allegedly **groomed and trafficked underage girls**.
* ✈ The data also tracked visitor movements to and from the island, including routes taken from **Cyril E. King Airport and nearby luxury resorts**, indicating a **regular influx of visitors** even after Epstein's prior conviction in 2008.
* 🏡 The analysis revealed **166 locations across the U.S.**, with significant clusters in affluent areas like Florida and Massachusetts, suggesting many visitors were **wealthy individuals**.
* 🌍 Interestingly, no data points from Europe were found, possibly due to stringent privacy laws like the **GDPR**, which protect personal data **more rigorously** than U.S. regulations.
* 💼 Following Epstein's death, billionaire Stephen Ross bought the islands for **$60 million**, with plans to develop a **luxury resort**, while Ghislaine Maxwell was tracked and arrested using **location data**, highlighting the **ongoing implications of surveillance**.

- Even in death, the
secrets of Jeffrey Epstein remain tightly guarded,
but earlier this year I spearheaded a "WIRED" investigation that uncovered the data of
almost 200 mobile phones belonging to visitors-
[camera shutter clicking]

To his infamous pedophile island. The data was so precise we were able to map the
paths of these visitors to within centimeters,
including their neighborhoods, buildings of origin,
and the paths they took to get to the island. These digital trails
document the numerous trips

of wealthy and influential individuals seemingly undeterred by Epstein's status as a convicted sex offender. "WIRED's" analysis of the data is ongoing and it raises profound questions about privacy and surveillance. This is Epstein Island's Secret Data,

On The Grid. This is Little St. James,
AKA, Epstein Island. These red dots on the map represent some of the 11,279 coordinates I obtained. They were left exposed online
by a location data broker with ties to the Defense
Department called,

Near Intelligence, now known as Azira. Between 2016, and Epstein's
final arrest in 2019, Near collected data on
more than 200 cell phones that visited the island. We don't know why they
did that, or which client,

or prospective client of Near, decided to query the data in
this way to produce the maps. But the maps you'll see in this video show where visitors-
[camera shutter clicking] To Epstein Island spent
most of their time. Let's take a step back.

You might be wondering where
Epstein Island is, anyways. Well, it's here. Little St. James is a private island that is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, an unincorporated territory
of the United States in the Caribbean Sea.

Epstein purchased Little St. James in 1998 for $7.95 million. It's about 71 acres, the
size of 54 football fields. He made the island his primary residence and soon after began welcoming visitors and throwing infamous parties

where he was accused of having groomed, sexually assaulted, and trafficked untold numbers of women and girls. The maps of the data collected by Near, and which we at "WIRED" recreated here, indicate the most visited
spots on the island.

From the main house here with the pool, to the beaches and the large sundial, it's all on display including the enigmatic Hilltop
Temple site over here, which has been the focal
point in speculations about Epstein's mysterious
activities on the island.

But the tracking of phones wasn't contained to Little St. James. Surveillance continued long
after the visitors left. The data reveals the locations of visitors 30 minutes before and after
arriving on the island, which shows us the exact routes
everyone took to get there.

Some landed here at the
Cyril E. King Airport on neighboring St. Thomas Island. With its private jet, and VIP terminals, it was the go-to hub-
[camera shutter clicking] For Epstein's 200-seater
Boeing 727 plane dubbed,

Lolita Express. We see data points clustered at various area beaches, hotels, and luxury resorts, including the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here. To get to Epstein's Island, many visitors got on a boat at a designated dock

at the American Yacht Harbor, a private marina on St. Thomas co-owned by Epstein at the time. From there we see a flow of movement through Great St. James Island, a larger island just to the north, which Epstein purchased in 2016 for $22 million.

He had hoped to develop it, but was met with legal challenges after damaging the island's coral reefs and protected habitats. The data then traces visitors' movements as they are ferried to Epstein's private dock on Little St. James. Epstein also had a helipad on the island

and owned at least one helicopter, a Sikorsky S-76, which he used often to transport himself, guests, and victims, from the airport, or elsewhere, according to legal documents and testimony. It's worth noting that the data reveals

a regular flow of traffic to and from Little St. James between 2016 and 2019. A lot of people were visiting the island even after Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 and served jail time for procuring a minor for prostitution.

If we keep following the data trail, and we widen our view, we'll see that the tracking of visitors continues once they have left the island and presumably gone back home. The Near Intelligence data we uncovered pinpoints 166 locations throughout the United States

and 80 cities across 26 states. Topping the list were
Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, Michigan, and New York. The data points are labeled
as common evening locations, or common daytime locations, typically their homes or work.

Many of the visitors were likely wealthy, as indicated by coordinates
pointing to gated communities in Michigan, as well as
homes in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts. We even have data points from
a downtown Miami nightclub

and also the sidewalk across the street from Trump Tower in New York City. Before we jump to conclusions, some sources have highlighted interactions between Donald Trump and Jeffrey
Epstein at social events. But after Epstein's 2008 conviction, there are no verified reports

of Trump maintaining a relationship with the convicted pedophile. Take a look at this point
over here in New Mexico. This is a property that
was owned by Epstein, a secluded 8,000-acre ranch. Another property of
Epstein's is seen over here

on El Brillo Way in Palm Beach, Florida. This waterfront mansion
was sold, demolished, and is now being rebuilt, but it was where prosecutors claimed Epstein trafficked
numerous underage girls with the intention of
molesting and abusing them.

But we don't just see the coordinates of wealthy homes amongst the data, the median household income of Palm Beach is more than twice that
of nearby communities where we also see data points. Some of these points
could represent victims, or employees, who worked on the island,

which is why we're careful
about revealing names and continue to carefully
analyze the data. If we zoom out more we
notice something strange. There are no data points
anywhere in Europe. Does this mean it was strictly Americans visiting Jeffrey Epstein on his island?

No, we do see data points from the cache identifying origin cities in Australia, the Cayman Islands, and way over here in Kiev in Ukraine. We know that Epstein himself
had a place in Paris, and we know from victim
testimony, and flight logs,

that his associate, Jean-Luc Brunel, owner of a modeling agency in Paris, did visit the island, so why
don't we see these data points? One possibility could be
Europe's extensive privacy laws considered the strongest privacy and security law in the world,

the General Data Protection
Regulation, GDPR, gives Europeans robust
rights to their personal data even outside of Europe. Under comparatively lax U.S. privacy laws, Near Intelligence was able
to source its location data for this precision surveillance. To explain how this data

might have been collected
in the first place, we need to talk about the
world of digital advertising and data brokers. The reason you get a targeted ad displayed on an app, or a website, is because apps on your phone have been transmitting
information about you

to ad exchanges and
real-time bidding platforms, that information often
includes your location data. Data brokers, like Near Intelligence, extract, repackage, analyze, and sell the data from these ad platforms. In fact, according to internal
company documents from 2019,

Near Intelligence, which has roots in Singapore
and Bengaluru, India, claimed to have information
on around 1.6 billion people in 44 countries. They offer a platform for searching that allows their clients
to query their vast dataset by drawing a box around a specific area,

like Little St. James.
Near then provides insights about the devices it observed
within the selected area. We don't know who or why
someone searched Epstein Island, but the reports and maps they created were sitting unprotected
and totally searchable as publicly accessible code,

and that's where we found them. And those aren't the only
Near Intelligence data sets that we found. Google's web crawlers were able to locate at least two other reports, one geofencing the Westfield
Mall in the Netherlands,

and another targeting a
park in El Paso, Texas. This is data unrelated
to our investigation about Epstein Island, but it shows how unsafe
personal data can be. In some cases it's just
a Google search away. So pro tip, if you don't
want your personal data

swimming around in the murky waters of programmatic advertising, make sure you limit ad
tracking on your phone, disable location services
and third party cookies, and use an ad blocker. So what happened to the island after Epstein reportedly committed suicide in a Manhattan federal jail

while awaiting trial for sex trafficking? Well, in May of 2023, billionaire investor, Stephen Ross, purchased both Little St.
James, and Great St. James, for $60 million. He's currently building a luxury resort

on Little St. James that he says could open as early as 2025. Also, Ghislaine Maxwell, former British socialite, 
and Epstein accomplice, was convicted in 2021 on five counts, including sex trafficking
of minors by force.

Maxwell was arrested in
Bradford, New Hampshire, tracked to a million-dollar
home by federal agents using location data pulled
from her cell phone. I'm Dhruv Mehrotra. The "WIRED" investigation into the secret data of
Epstein's Island continues.

We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island | WIRED

WIRED

Investigation into Epstein Island's Secret Data

Investigation uncovered data from almost 200 mobile phones belonging to visitors of Epstein's island.

Data mapped visitors' paths with centimeter precision, including origins and routes to the island.

Data documents numerous trips by wealthy and influential individuals, despite Epstein's status as a convicted sex offender.

Data obtained from location data broker Near Intelligence (now Azira), collected between 2016 and 2019.

The purpose of data collection by Near Intelligence and who queried the data remains unknown.

Little St. James, Epstein's private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, purchased in 1998.

Epstein used the island as his primary residence, hosting parties where he allegedly abused women and girls.

Data maps show the most visited spots on the island, including the main house, beaches, and a Hilltop Temple site.

Surveillance extended beyond the island, tracking visitors' movements 30 minutes before and after their arrival.

Visitors often used Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas, and boats from American Yacht Harbor.

Tracking Visitors After Leaving the Island

Data tracked visitors to 166 locations across the US, spanning 80 cities in 26 states.

Locations included wealthy areas like gated communities in Michigan and homes in Martha's Vineyard.

Data points also appeared near Trump Tower in New York City and other locations suggesting varied socioeconomic backgrounds.

Data included Epstein's properties in New Mexico and Palm Beach, Florida.

Some data points might represent victims or employees, requiring careful analysis to avoid revealing identities.

Geographic Scope of the Data and Privacy Implications

Absence of European data points, despite Epstein's connections to Europe, possibly due to stricter European privacy laws (GDPR).

Data points from Australia, the Cayman Islands, and Ukraine were found.

Near Intelligence's data collection practices highlighted the lax U.S. privacy laws compared to Europe's GDPR.

Data was likely collected through digital advertising and data brokers, who extract location data from apps and sell it.

Data Broker Practices and Data Accessibility

Apps transmit location data to ad exchanges and real-time bidding platforms.

Near Intelligence claimed to have data on 1.6 billion people in 44 countries.

Near Intelligence's platform allows clients to query data by selecting a specific area.

Epstein Island reports and maps were found publicly accessible.

Other Near Intelligence datasets were found, highlighting the vulnerability of personal data.

Stephen Ross purchased Epstein's islands and plans to build a luxury resort.

Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking.

The WIRED investigation into Epstein Island's secret data continues.