Epstein Whistleblower Dies at 57 After FBI Declined To Investigate His Lutnick Tip Years Earlier

Simon Andriesz, the British banker whose Epstein files search exposed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's undisclosed ties to Jeffrey Epstein, has died at 57, years after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did not investigate his 2020 warning.

His death was reported by The Banker and confirmed by Andy Agathangelou, founder of the Transparency Task Force, who said Andriesz had 'passed away last week'. The Banker reported that he died by suicide, but no official cause of death has been publicly released.

The Warning the FBI Set Aside

Andriesz told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that he approached the FBI in 2020 and 2021 with detailed allegations that Lutnick held undeclared business dealings with Epstein, only to meet 'no interest'. The FBI did not investigate those accusations. That decision now sits at the heart of the story, because the man who tried to put the claims before US investigators five years ago can no longer expand on them.

How He Found the Adfin Emails

A veteran of more than 35 years in the securities industry and a former managing director at BGC Group, part of the Cantor Fitzgerald group that Lutnick headed, Andriesz knew its executives often signed internal emails with their initials.

When the Justice Department released millions of Epstein records in January 2026, he searched the files for 'HWL', the initials of Howard William Lutnick, rather than the full name reporters were using.

The search surfaced a 2018 exchange in which Epstein asked about the prospects of Adfin, a digital advertising company both men had backed, and an account identified as Lutnick's replied with an update on its revenue.

Lutnick's Shifting Account

Andriesz handed the correspondence to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee before Lutnick's closed-door deposition on 6 May 2026. Lutnick told the committee that, to the best of his knowledge, he had only learned in 2026 that Epstein was an Adfin investor, an account the 2018 emails call into question. All 21 Democrats on the committee later signed a letter demanding his resignation and accusing him of lying. The BBC reported that Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein's crimes.

The timeline had dogged him before. Lutnick once said he cut ties with his former neighbour in 2005, yet released records showed a 2012 family lunch on Epstein's private island. 'We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,' he told a Senate committee, insisting he saw nothing untoward and adding, 'I have nothing to hide, absolutely nothing.'

A Source Congress Can No Longer Call

Responding to the July BBC programme, the White House called it a 'pathetic and desperate attempt to slander Secretary Lutnick', while the Commerce Department said he had voluntarily answered hundreds of questions with no evidence of wrongdoing. BGC has denied retaliating against Andriesz and called his claims 'categorically false'.

Andriesz paid a steep price for speaking out, saying the fight cost him his career, finances, and health. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) later awarded him about $420,000 (£318,000) as a whistleblower. His death removes a key source on the Lutnick email trail from an inquiry that is still running, and leaves his central question, whether a tip to the FBI should have been acted on, unanswered.