Narativ with Zev Shalev

Narativ with Zev Shalev

The Narativ

EXCLUSIVE: DOJ’s Epstein Files Named the Lutnick Whistleblower Without Redaction

The Justice Department blacked out Simon Andriesz from his FBI interview everywhere but one line. Britain's regulator wrongly told him being named had cost him his protection. He died last month.

Zev Shalev's avatar
Zev Shalev
Oct 06, 2026
∙ Paid

The Narativ is a full stack of original news reports and intelligent analysis on the day’s biggest stories delivered to your inbox 5 days a week. The Front Page is free to all subscribers while deeper dives are reserved for paid subscribers - now at 20% off annual subscriptions.

Simon Andriesz tried to get the FBI to look at Howard Lutnick. He called the bureau from Britain in October 2020 about Lutnick and a possible Epstein connection. Agents interviewed him by phone on Feb. 16, 2021, and he told them Lutnick "instructed all of the fraud being committed." Andriesz had been a managing director at BGC, Lutnick's brokerage. The agents wrote three pages and filed them.

Five years to the day later, on Feb. 16, 2026, the Justice Department published those three pages in the Epstein files. Every reference to him was blacked out but one. On page 2 one line is not redacted: "ANDREISZ advised the day of the charity day trading would shift if the publicized day was not a successful trading day." The I and the E are swapped, and the name is his. Narativ reported the file that night and broke the Lutnick story from it.

On July 14 the BBC named him on air. At some point the record does not date, an official at Britain's Financial Conduct Authority told him that because his identity had been disclosed, he had lost his whistleblower protection. The FCA later called that advice wrong and apologized. On Sept. 23 Andriesz died in Thailand. His family says he took his own life. His last post on X promised more evidence.

Which disclosure did the FCA mean: the department's file in February, the BBC in July, or something earlier? The FCA names none and dates nothing. If it was the file, a redaction the Justice Department missed led Britain's regulator to tell a whistleblower, wrongly, that he was no longer protected.

Share

Take me back to The Narativ front page

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Zev Shalev.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Zev Shalev · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture