The 57-year-old whistleblower who exposed ties between Howard Lutnick and Jeffrey Epstein died by hanging, a new report has revealed.
British banker Simon Andriesz’s cause of death has been listed as “asphyxiation from hanging,” the Daily Mail reported Tuesday, citing a Thai town’s municipality office.
There has been much speculation about the circumstances surrounding the death of Andriesz, whose body was found on Sept. 23 in a town outside Bangkok.
Andriesz alleged to the FBI that Lutnick, now Commerce Secretary, failed to disclose a business relationship with Epstein. Andriesz was once a managing director at BGC’s Wall Street firm, where Lutnick was previously CEO.
Andriesz said he unearthed 2018 emails that showed Lutnick and Epstein discussing a start-up business a decade after he was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a child. Epstein died about a year after the email exchange.
Andriesz found the emails by searching the DOJ’s release of Epstein documents for “HWL,” Lutnick’s initials, knowing from his years working with Lutnick that executives preferred to use initials in emails, he told the BBC in July.
Andriesz shared the emails with the U.S. House Oversight Committee before Lutnick appeared before it in May. Responding to the criticism of Lutnick’s business ties to Epstein, the Commerce Department has said there was “no evidence of wrongdoing or legitimate cause for concern.”
Separately, Andriesz told the BBC that Lutnick’s company, Cantor Fitzgerald, which is now run by his sons, explored a business deal in 2013 with the disgraced royal formerly known as Prince Andrew, a friend of Epstein, which ultimately did not materialize.
Andriesz said he was “thoroughly let down” by the watchdog’s handling of his evidence of retaliation by BGC and its lawyers. British politicians ordered an investigation into the watchdog and its handling of information provided by Andriesz, who was living in Cornwall, England, at the time of his death.
Lutnick admitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee in February that he and his family traveled to Epstein’s notorious island in 2012, saying, “I don’t recall why we did it.” However, he denies having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has not been accused of criminal activity.
A friend of Andriesz set up a GoFundMe page for his son with a target of about $46,000.
“When Simon believed something was wrong, he found it extraordinarily difficult simply to look the other way,” Andriesz’s family said in a statement on Tuesday. “That determination came at a considerable personal cost, but he continued to speak out because he genuinely believed that doing so mattered.”
