By Elizabeth Gresosky
Simon Andriesz, a British man who worked for BGC Partners, part of Howard Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald Group, reportedly died by suicide last week.
Andriesz was a major – if not the primary – source in bringing Lutnick’s ties to disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to light. Lutnick was sworn into office as the Commerce Secretary in February of 2025.
In October 2025, Lutnick told interviewers that after meeting Epstein once in 2005, he felt grossed out by the man and swore never to be in the same room as him again, whether it be for personal, business, or philanthropic reasons.
In February 2026, however, it was revealed that Lutnick made a visit to Epstein’s island in 2012 – four years after Epstein was convicted of solicitation charges in 2008, which had been part of a plea deal to scrap the original federal sex trafficking charges. Lutnick said this lunch on the island was “inconsequential” and that they did not have any business dealings – that claim, however, turned out to be not entirely accurate. The two appeared to discuss investment prospects in an email chain in 2018.
Andriesz is largely responsible for exposing this discrepancy.
Years earlier, in 2020-2021, Andriesz reached out to the FBI regarding Cantor Fitzgerald’s and BGC Partners’ ties to Epstein. His battle against the Wall Street giants had actually begun in 2016 when he filed internal complaints within BGC about accounting irregularities as a whistleblower.
Andriesz was then fired from BGC in 2017, although some of his allegations later led the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to order BGC to pay a $3m penalty for “numerous supervision, reporting, and record-keeping violations,” per the BBC.
The CFTC also awarded $420,000 to Andriesz as the claimant in the case, although he later said this award paid only a fraction of legal costs, and he raised concerns about the level of protection provided to whistleblowers as he faced numerous personal challenges involving his family and health as a result of his efforts.
Based on Andriesz’s claims, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), a UK government office, also ordered BGC to pay $96 million in taxes.
Simon Andriesz, the British banker who uncovered 2018 emails linking Howard Lutnick to Jeffrey Epstein’s Adfin investment and took them to House Oversight, has died at age 57. BBC reported his findings. Lutnick later admitted to visiting the island but not the business dealings.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) October 4, 2026
When Andriesz reached out to the FBI a few years later, he reiterated concerns about Cantor Fitzgerald’s & BGC’s activities under Lutnick, which he alleged included “fraud, money laundering, charity-day fraud, a Ponzi-style scheme, embezzlement and potential RICO-related conduct” according to the Transparency Task Force, a non-profit dedicated to finance reform.
He also told the FBI about Lutnick’s business ties to Epstein.
When the first large batch of the Epstein files became publicly available in February 2026, Andriesz said he was shocked to find his own name in the files, referencing back to his 2020-2021 contact with the FBI.
Andriesz said he knew that corporate executives like to use the initials of others when discussing matters in emails, so while other independent investigators might have been using “Lutnick” as the key word in the searchable Epstein file database, he keyed in “HWL” for Howard William Lutnick and stumbled upon an email chain which he said confirmed his suspicions.
The search turned up a 2018 email chain between “HWL” and Epstein discussing the financial prospects of the company Adfin which they had both invested in.
Epstein had emailed the HWL account, “what do you think the prospects for adfin are?” to which Lutnick responded: “Producing revenue finally. This is their year. Next 12 months they need to become economically self-sufficient.” The two then appeared to briefly discuss some kind of real estate transaction. Lutnick later said he didn’t know that Epstein was an investor in Adfin.
Andriesz shared this information with the US House Oversight Committee members, and Lutnick was brought in for an off-camera hearing in May 2026.
Through his Epstein file search, Andriesz also exposed how Lutnick attempted to “buy” Prince Andrew through a loan via Cantor Fitzgerald, and Epstein himself warned David Stern, Prince Andrew’s business aide, against the deal.
In July 2026, Andriesz’s findings were featured in BBC File on 4’s Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower, and Andriesz subsequently spoke at a Transparency Task Force Event that month.
When this documentary came out and the BBC promoted it, the White House responded and said, “The BBC’s pathetic and desperate attempt to slander Secretary Lutnick will do nothing to change the fact that he has been the most consequential Commerce Secretary in modern history.”
I agree w/ Thomas Massie. Howard Lutnik LIED about his relationship w/ Jeffrey Epstein. Lutnik is either another pedo in the pedophile president’s admin or a pedo-curious idiot. Other countries are firing officials over less than what Lutnik is guilty of. https://t.co/ZGN7sMrzND
— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) February 8, 2026
It was the founder of the Transparency Task Force, Andy Agathangelou, who confirmed Andriesz’s death last week. In a LinkedIn post, he wrote:
🕯️Remembering Simon Andriesz: a whistleblower who stood up for what was right 🕯️
It is with great sadness that we share the news that Simon Andriesz, a valued member of our community, passed away last week.
Simon spent 35 years in the securities industry before becoming a whistleblower. His disclosures were later validated in part: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission gave him a formal whistleblower award, and HM Revenue & Customs issued a substantial determination concerning matters he had raised.
Simon’s case was featured in the hard-hitting BBC File on 4 Investigates broadcast on 14 July 2026, Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower:
Shortly after, he spoke publicly for the first time at a Transparency Task Force event on the FCA’s handling of his case, describing the personal cost of coming forward to his career, his health, and his family…
…Whistleblowing can be an isolating path, and Simon’s experience was a reminder of how much whistleblowers sacrifice and how much more support they deserve.
We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and loved ones.
Agathangelou linked to a tribute article written for Andriesz by another member of the Transparency Task Force, and a note at the bottom indicated suicide as the cause of death:
This article is dedicated to the memory of Simon Andriesz who bravely fought alone for several years doing what he believed was right in exposing evidence of wrongdoing. Simon as a lone and vulnerable voice was let down by some of those who he needed to trust and who were able to make a difference. It is a tragedy that he felt so let down, how he sadly saw no way out recently and was lost.
