A British watchdog group has launched a probe after the suicide of the man who exposed emails exchanged between disgraced financierJeffrey Epsteinand current U.S. Secretary of CommerceHoward Lutnick.
The Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (BFCA) said it will examine its interactions with whistleblowerSimon Andrieszand evaluate how it works with whistleblowers and other vulnerable people going forward.
Simon Andriesz had been raising concerns about Howard Lutnick for years. MEGA
"We are very sorry to hear of Mr. Andriesz's death," an FCA spokespoerson said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Since expressing our condolences, we have asked Lea Paterson, who has just joined our board as a non-executive director, to review how we interacted with Mr. Andriesz to learn any lessons for the future."
The FCA said that it expects the probe to be completed by the end of the year and provide recommendations for how to best support whistleblowers in the future.
Andriesz's representative,John Robertson, said, "Simon spent years trying to get people to listen. The tragedy is that the serious questions are only being asked now that he is gone."
Simon Andriesz exposed how Howard Lutnick remained in touch with Jeffrey Epstein until at least 2018. MEGA
Andriesz, a British banker who once worked under Lutnick, died months after he alerted the House Oversight Committee of emails Epstein and Lutnick exchanged in 2018 about a digital advertising company they were both invested in called Adfin.
Andriesz discovered the email chain in the millions of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice. He told theBBCthat he searched Lutnick's initials, "HWL," knowing from his time as his employee at BGC Partners that Lutnick preferred to sign his emails that way.
The emails, exchanged in May 2018, find Epstein asking Lutnick about how Adfin is doing, to which Lutnick says the company is finally turning a profit. Epstein then asks Lutnick about buying a guest house, but Lutnick says the house is four years away from being built.
The discovery contradicts Howard Lutnick's claim he quickly cut off ties with Epstein. MEGA
The exchange between Epstein and Lutnick isn't scandalous in itself, but its existence contradicts the 65-year-old secretary's public statements about when he cut off his relationship with the notorious trafficker.
In 2025, Lutnick told theNew York Postthat he met Epstein in 2005 when they were neighbors, but claimed he soon "cut off contact" with Epstein after being creeped out by a massage parlor in the financier's Manhattan home.
However, the emails suggest that Lutnick and Epstein remained in close contact for over a decade, well after Epstein was arrested in 2008 for prostitution charges, and up to at least a year before Epstein was arrested for trafficking in 2019, the same year as his suicide.
At a May 2026 hearing in front of the House Oversight Committee, Lutnick claimed he only discovered Epstein was an investor in Adfin when the files were released.
