Everyone in this story owns planes

From Air America to Blackwater, what's the deal?

This is part seven of a series. Here is a guide to the whole thing.

Since we began this series, I have had fascinating phone calls—mostly from people who don't want me to use their names. One well-positioned guy said that everyone was missing that Jeffrey Epstein was part of a large group. And nobody has really explained yet exactly what that group does.

I’ve been obsessing on that. What’s the business? Where did all these billions come from? Brainstorm: This story includes some confirmed Ponzi schemers. Insider trading has come up. Money laundering is popular these days. Some people in this story quietly put together a handful of the largest arms deals in history. 

I got a sack of books from the library, then spent the better part of a week reading testimony from a subcommittee on intelligence. 

And an odd clue: planes. Or, really, fleets. This is a story about people with fleets:

• There’s a guy who you’ve probably never heard of who has the biggest fleet on planet earth—and leases them to…