Four aircraft. Four shell companies. Four jurisdictions. $75 million in documented spend.
That's not a wealthy man's hobby fleet. That's an aviation division — with its own corporate architecture, its own bank accounts, and its own compliance trail that made Deutsche Bank's auditors ask questions nobody wanted to answer.
Here's what Epstein's sky operation looked like, entity by entity:1
| Registration | Aircraft | Operating Entity | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|
| N908JE | Boeing 727-31 | JEGE, Inc. | West Palm Beach, FL |
| N909JE | Gulfstream II/SP | Hyperion Air, Inc. | Delaware |
| N908GM | Sikorsky S76C++ | Air Ghislaine, Inc. | New York, NY |
| — | Aircraft (2017) | Plan D, LLC | St. Thomas, USVI |
Look at the registration numbers. N908JE — Jeffrey Epstein. N909JE — Jeffrey Epstein. N908GM — Ghislaine Maxwell.
He put their initials on the tail numbers.
The Boeing
The Boeing 727 — tail number N908JE, the aircraft the press would later call the "Lolita Express" — was operated through JEGE, Inc., headquartered at 1514 Perimeter Road, Suite 105A, West Palm Beach, Florida.
JEGE was the operations entity. Fuel, crew payroll, maintenance, work orders — everything ran through JEGE's account at Colonial Bank. And the numbers were not small.
November 16, 2004. A single wire from Epstein's JPMorgan checking account to JEGE, Inc., via Colonial Bank: $775,587.2
Three-quarters of a million dollars. One transaction. One month's operations for one aircraft.
That wasn't even the most expensive line item. March 6, 2008: a wire to Flightstar Aircraft Services in the amount of $580,000 — referencing "JEGE Inc Work Order Y 7281."3 A single month's maintenance on a single aircraft.
The financial records show JEGE receiving regular six-figure transfers from Epstein's personal account — $200,000 here, $150,000 there, $350,000 in a single internal funds transfer.2 The 727 burned money the way it burned jet fuel: constantly, expensively, and without interruption.
The Gulfstream and the $59.5 Million Dream
The Gulfstream II/SP — tail number N909JE — was held by Hyperion Air, Inc., a Delaware entity. But Hyperion Air wasn't just managing what Epstein already had. It was shopping for the next level.
April 15, 2008. A book transfer from Epstein's JPMorgan account to Gulfstream Aerospace Corp in Savannah, Georgia. The reference line:4
"Hyperion Trust — G650 Refundable Deposit"
$500,000. A refundable deposit on a Gulfstream G650 — the fastest civilian jet in the world at the time, with a sticker price of $59.5 million.
The entity placing the deposit wasn't Hyperion Air. It was "The Hyperion Trust." Same name, different legal wrapper. A trust placing a half-million-dollar deposit on a $59.5 million jet, through a shell company, on behalf of a man who would be arrested fourteen months later.
The same bank statements show regular wires to Hyperion Air Inc via Citizens Bank of Delaware — $40,000, $50,000, $10,000 — the steady drip of operating costs for a Gulfstream that sat alongside the Boeing in Epstein's fleet.2
Air Ghislaine
The bank statement is dated June 2007. The account holder: AIR GHISLAINE INC. The address: c/o New York Strategy Group LLC, 457 Madison Avenue, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10022. Jeffrey Epstein's office.5
The account had been sitting quietly at $32,133.42. Then on June 18, $7.4 million transferred in from another Epstein account. And in the same day, one outgoing payment:
"SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT CORP — RE PURCHASE OF A GREEN HELICOPTER SIKORSKY S76C AND DOWNPAYMENT ON EXECUTIVE FINISH"
$7,352,825. For a green helicopter.
The registration would be N908GM. GM — Ghislaine Maxwell. The same woman who would be convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021. Epstein named a helicopter company after her. Put her initials on the tail number. And routed the $7.35 million purchase through a JPMorgan business checking account at his own office address.
Six months later, December 31, 2007, a second payment to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp for the same helicopter:6
"Air Ghislaine — Aircraft Serial Number 760667 Reg Number N908GM"
$677,825. Completion work. The "executive finish" on the green helicopter.
Total Sikorsky spend: $8,030,650. Named after Ghislaine. Registered N908GM. Paid through 457 Madison Avenue.
On the same June 2007 bank statement, a $50,000 deposit refund from Bell Helicopter Textron — suggesting Air Ghislaine had been shopping with Bell before settling on the Sikorsky.5 They comparison-shopped for helicopters the way most people comparison-shop for cars.
Plan D
In March 2017, a Deutsche Bank statement for Plan D, LLC — registered to Jeffrey Epstein at 6100 Red Hook Quarter, B-3, St. Thomas, USVI — recorded three transactions that tell an entire story in three lines:7
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 27 | Incoming Cash Management Transfer | $15,000,000 |
| Mar 28 | Wire to Insured Aircraft Title Service, Inc. | ($14,750,000) |
| Mar 31 | Incoming Wire from BV70 LLC | $22,500,000 |
$14.75 million for an aircraft. Purchased through an entity called Plan D. In the U.S. Virgin Islands. Via a title service in Oklahoma City.
But the third line is the one that matters.
"We Cannot Find Any Information Via Internet"
On March 31, 2017, $22.5 million arrived in the Plan D, LLC account from an entity called BV70 LLC, at 445 Park Avenue, Suite 1401, New York, NY 10022.7
Eleven days later, Deutsche Bank's auditor Cynthia Rodriguez flagged the wire. Her message to Richard Kahn — the man who ran Epstein's operations hub at HBRK Associates — contained five questions:8
"What is the purpose of the Incoming Wire from BV70 LLC?"
"What is the relationship between the client and BV70 LLC?"
"What type of products/services does BV70 LLC provide?"
"We cannot find any information via internet for BV70 LLC. Please provide resources (physical address, website, etc.) for this entity."
"Is activity of this nature expected to continue?"
A bank's compliance division — Deutsche Bank, one of the largest financial institutions on the planet — could not find BV70 LLC on the internet. Twenty-two and a half million dollars from a ghost.
Richard Kahn's response was three lines:
"Entity BV70 LLC is owned by Leon Black, who is a client of Southern Trust Company. BV70 LLC is the owner of Leon Black's yacht."
Leon Black. The co-founder of Apollo Global Management. The man who paid $50 million to Epstein's USVI shell company in a single year. The man whose total payments to Epstein would eventually reach $158 million.
His yacht company — an entity so opaque that Deutsche Bank's own auditors couldn't google it — wired $22.5 million to Epstein's aircraft-purchasing shell company in the Virgin Islands. Eleven days after Plan D had just spent $14.75 million on a new aircraft.
The $22.5 million refilled the account. The yacht funded the jet. And Deutsche Bank had to ask who BV70 was, because no one had told them.
A second BV70 wire followed on April 17: $8 million.7 Total: $30.5 million from Leon Black's yacht entity to Epstein's aircraft entity, in seventeen days. The surplus was swept to Southern Trust's money market account — the same $92 million money market that processed everything from $600,000 legal retainers to Larry Summers's KIT KAT bar.
12,000 Gallons of Jet A
Aircraft don't sit on the tarmac. They fly. And flying requires infrastructure.
December 17, 2012. A wire from Epstein's account to Bohlke International Airways, via FirstBank Puerto Rico:9
"Hyperion Fuel 12000 Gallons Jet A Inv No 4"
$47,376. Twelve thousand gallons of Jet A fuel. From a fuel supplier in the U.S. Virgin Islands — the midpoint between Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and his private island.
Bohlke International Airways operates from the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport on St. Croix, USVI. It's a charter service and fuel supplier. "Hyperion Fuel" in the invoice reference — the same Hyperion name as the Gulfstream entity and the trust that placed the G650 deposit. The branding ran through everything.
The same bank statement shows a payment to Trade Air Airline Support Ltd ($22,403.61) and a prepaid fuel order through the Bank of Nova Scotia in St. Thomas: "LSJ Prepaid Fuel — 10,000 Gallons Premium and 25,000 Diesel."9 That's island fuel — for generators, vehicles, boats at Little St. James.
Fuel for the jets. Fuel for the island. All on the same monthly statement. All routed through the same JPMorgan account in St. Thomas.
The Ledger
Add it up:
| Item | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Sikorsky S76C++ purchase + completion | $8,030,650 | Air Ghislaine Inc |
| Plan D aircraft acquisition (2017) | $14,750,000 | Plan D, LLC |
| BV70 LLC wires to Plan D | $30,500,000 | Leon Black's yacht entity |
| G650 refundable deposit | $500,000 | Hyperion Trust |
| JEGE Colonial Bank (single transaction) | $775,587 | JEGE, Inc. |
| Flightstar maintenance (single month) | $580,000 | JEGE, Inc. |
| Hyperion Fuel — 12,000 gal Jet A | $47,376 | Bohlke International |
And that's a sample. The full financial records document 658 transactions mentioning JEGE alone — regular six-figure transfers spanning a decade of 727 operations. Maintenance at Flightstar, Goodrich, TIMCO Aviation. Fuel from Bohlke. Crew at FlightSafety International. The total aviation spend exceeds $75 million.
Four aircraft. Four shell companies. Four jurisdictions. One system — designed so that the Boeing was isolated from the Gulfstream, the Gulfstream from the helicopter, the helicopter from the 2017 acquisition. No single entity held the full picture.
And when Deutsche Bank asked where $22.5 million came from, they got a three-line email from the man at 575 Lexington Avenue. Leon Black's yacht company. Funding Jeffrey Epstein's jets.
Follow the tail numbers.
This is the third article in The Ghost Network series — documenting the shell companies, logistics pipelines, and financial machinery behind Jeffrey Epstein's self-running empire. Previously: Twelve Shell Companies. Next: The $50 Million Question.
Sources & Documents
- DOJ financial records and knowledge graph — Aircraft registration table, entity mappings, and aviation transaction records derived from 49,770 financial transactions and 934 knowledge graph entities.
- EFTA01526342 — JPMorgan Private Bank statement, Jeffrey E Epstein, October 30–November 30, 2004. Includes $775,587 Fedwire to JEGE, Inc. via Colonial Bank (Nov 16) and multiple wires to Hyperion Air Inc via Citizens Bank DE. View →
- EFTA01527065 — JPMorgan Private Bank statement, March 1–31, 2008. Includes $580,000 Fedwire to Flightstar Aircraft Services for "JEGE Inc Work Order Y 7281." View →
- EFTA01527073 — JPMorgan Private Bank statement, April 1–30, 2008. Includes $500,000 book transfer to Gulfstream Aerospace Corp: "Hyperion Trust — G650 Refundable Deposit." View →
- EFTA01654271 — JPMorgan Private Bank statement, Air Ghislaine Inc, June 1–29, 2007. Government Exhibit 501. Includes $7,352,825 to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp for "Purchase of a Green Helicopter Sikorsky S76C and Downpayment on Executive Finish" and $50,000 Bell Helicopter Textron deposit refund. View →
- EFTA01527036 — JPMorgan Private Bank statement, December 1–31, 2007. Includes $677,825 to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp for "Air Ghislaine — Aircraft Serial Number 760667 Reg Number N908GM." View →
- EFTA01286706 — Deutsche Bank statement, Plan D LLC, March 1–31, 2017. Includes $14,750,000 wire to Insured Aircraft Title Service Inc and $22,500,000 incoming wire from BV70 LLC (445 Park Avenue, Suite 1401, New York). Marked "CONFIDENTIAL — PURSUANT TO FED R CRIM. P. 6(e)." View →
- EFTA01389074 — Deutsche Bank compliance correspondence, April 11, 2017. Cynthia Rodriguez (auditor) to Richard Kahn (HBRK Associates): "We cannot find any information via internet for BV70 LLC." Kahn's response: "Entity BV70 LLC is owned by Leon Black... BV70 LLC is the owner of Leon Black's yacht." View →
- EFTA01528293 — JPMorgan Private Bank statement, Jeffrey E Epstein, December 1–31, 2012. Includes wire to Bohlke International Airways: "Hyperion Fuel 12000 Gallons Jet A" and LSJ Prepaid Fuel order (10,000 gal premium + 25,000 gal diesel). View →
