Annuity trust, USVI, registered 3 January 2017
TrustsEpstein entityMoney documentedSubpoenaed or investigatedPerson affiliated
Also written: 2017 Caterpillar Trust, Caterpillar Trust
An Epstein-settled annuity trust, registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands on 3 January 2017 with Lesley Groff and Daphne Wallace as trustees. Jeffrey Epstein telephoned his Deutsche Bank relationship manager on 2 February 2018 to open a deposit account for it, and the account was funded and used within eleven days: on 21 February 2018 the trust placed $10,500,000 into Blockchain Capital. It winds down into the Butterfly Trust, which takes its assets on termination, and it is the reason Deutsche Bank held Butterfly Trust records at all despite never opening an account for that trust.
Do not confuse it with the Butterfly Trust. They are distinct instruments joined by a beneficiary-on-termination clause, and conflating them has caught this project before. Its trustees, Lesley Groff and Daphne Wallace, were NOT Butterfly Trust trustees.
| Registration | Registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands on 3 January 2017, address 6100 Red Hook Quarter B3, St Thomas. Deutsche Bank recorded it as an annuity trust (EFTA00168920). |
|---|---|
| How the account was opened | Deutsche Bank KYC case 01898372, booked in New York under the Southern Financial relationship, relationship manager Stewart Oldfield. The file records that "Jeffrey Epstein reached out to Stew Oldfield on 2/02/2018 to open a new deposit account for his annuity trust" and that "initial funding must take place by 02/13/2018 in order to purchase assets for the trust." The account, The 2017 Caterpillar Trust - Deposit, opened on 13 February 2018 with Lesley Groff as the signatory contact (EFTA00168920). |
| What it bought | $10,500,000 into Blockchain Capital on 21 February 2018, booked as Blockchain Capital IV, LP and Blockchain Capital III Digital Liquid, eight days after the account opened. One of the largest single positions in Deutsche Bank's ledger of Jeffrey Epstein's private-fund investments (EFTA00027019, EFTA00080260). |
| Where its assets go | The trust instrument names the 2013 Butterfly Trust as the beneficiary that receives its assets on termination. Deutsche Bank told the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in November 2019 that it "did not open an account for" the Butterfly Trust but "received trust documents in the course of its due diligence on a separate Epstein-settled trust, 'The 2017 Caterpillar Trust'" (EFTA00015937). |
| A name that is an OCR artifact | Third-party entity lists carry this trust as "Caterpillar Trust 2". The 2 is not part of the name: it is the printed line number of the "Business name/disregarded entity name" field on the trust's IRS Form W-9 (EFTA00292755). |
| Deutsche Bank's own compliance staff mixed up its TIN with the Butterfly Trust's | An internal AML compliance chat, 16 March 2018, between Deutsche Bank staff Matthew-J Purcell and Cynthia Rodriguez working KYC number 1850140: "Hey sorry to bother you but the TIN # for The Caterpillar Trust 2017 is an individuals can you provide me with the correct TIN and i will update it right away" - Cynthia Rodriguez replies "26-6639711", which is the Butterfly Trust's EIN per the master entity tax table (EFTA01118590), not this trust's own. This is the bank's own paperwork error, recorded here as evidence of the confusion the caveat above warns about, not as evidence the two trusts are the same instrument (EFTA01409001, duplicated at EFTA01409187). |
Being named in these records is not by itself an allegation about anyone listed.
EFTA00168920 EFTA00027019 EFTA00080260 EFTA00015937 EFTA00292755 EFTA01409001 EFTA01409187