Tourists flock to get a glimpse of ‘Paedophile Island’ up close
JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S Caribbean island has become a bizarre tourist attraction, with locals and visitors chartering boats to sail around the palm-fringed land and gawp at his lavish home.
Little St James lies just off the southeast coast of St Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands.
“No one used to pay attention to it,” said Jon Stewart, the owner of a charter boat company, adding that now “there’s a ton more tourists”.
Epstein bought the 72-acre island in 1998 for $7.95 million (£6.5 million), planting towering palm trees and ordering the construction of multiple buildings, a swimming pool and a helicopter pad.
Two giant yellow-and-white statues of cockatiels guard the dock while a life-size Holstein cow statue grazes on the shore – locals report that Epstein liked to have it moved around the island, sometimes daily.
A blue-and-white temple-like structure was built on a rocky overlook, complete with a gold dome on the roof. Steve Scully, a contractor on the island, said it housed a gym.
Guests and staff would traverse the island, nicknamed “Paedophile Island”, on a series of golf buggies. On Monday it was the FBI using the buggies to investigate the territory, which Epstein listed as his main residence.
Locals recalled that some of the guards would come to the water’s edge if there were snorkellers in the area.
Dean Bofenkamp, from Youngstown, Ohio, said he was craning his neck to see it from a plane travelling to St Thomas. “I was just curious where it was,” he told the Associated Press.
In 2016, Epstein purchased the nearby Great St James Island, for $18 million. This year he began construction on a compound there, despite a stop-work order that had been in place since December. The compound was to feature an amphitheatre, an underwater office and a pool, according to the Virgin Islands Daily News.