You thought Epstein Island was buried secret? WIRED bought the mobile data from those very phones and mapped exactly where the visitors came from — and where they went home afterward. th

WIRED Bought Mobile Data from Epstein Island: Where Visitors Came From — and Where They Went Home

Little St. James — Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private island — has long been shrouded in rumors, elite guest lists, and impenetrable secrecy. But WIRED just did what few dared: they purchased mobile location data directly from the phones that once visited the island and reconstructed every movement — departure points, duration of stay, and, most chillingly, where those visitors quietly returned afterward.

The dataset, acquired from Near Intelligence and covering 2016–2019, includes over 11,000 GPS coordinates from more than 200 devices. The patterns are unmistakable: most arrivals came through Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas, followed by transfers to Epstein’s private jet or helicopter. On the island, activity clustered around the main residence, pool, beach, and the controversial “Hilltop Temple.” After departure, the devices traced back to 166 addresses across the U.S. — heavily concentrated in Florida, New York, and Massachusetts — with additional hits in Australia, the Cayman Islands, and even Kiev, Ukraine.

WIRED did not disclose specific identities to avoid legal issues, but the map alone tells a powerful story: these were not ghosts who vanished after visiting. They returned to luxury homes, upscale neighborhoods, and well-known locations — sometimes within blocks of landmarks like Trump Tower or vacation enclaves on Martha’s Vineyard. The most disturbing revelation? This data didn’t come from law enforcement or intelligence agencies — it came from the open digital advertising marketplace, where location pings from everyday apps are harvested and sold to the highest bidder.

This is no longer just an Epstein story. It is a wake-up call about the present reality: mobile location data has become a freely traded commodity, often collected without meaningful consent and sold without oversight. While Europe’s GDPR has choked much of the flow from that region, the United States and many other jurisdictions still operate with minimal restrictions.

Epstein’s island is no longer a black box. It has become the clearest evidence yet that in the era of big data, no one can truly hide — and the most urgent question now is: where is your own location data sitting, and who is currently holding it?