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New evidence suggests Jeffrey Epstein channelled millions of dollars through Russian-linked banks - as Byline Times reveals fresh details of the Kremlin-connected tech figures at the heart of his circle.

Three women close to Epstein - Masha Bucher, her sister Victoria Drokova, and model-turned-entrepreneur Lana Pozhidaeva - built venture-capital empires in Silicon Valley while maintaining hidden financial ties to Russian oligarchs, documents obtained by Byline Times show.

Together the three of them have continued to grow their interests in Silicon Valley, even as many of their former business associates have come under increasing scrutiny since the Kremlin's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Wyden has intensified his push, introducing legislation to compel Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to release Epstein-related banking records. In a July letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, he wrote that Epstein moved 'hundreds of millions of dollars' through Russian banks now under US sanctions. Wyden in particular has continued to press for answers regarding Epstein's business life, particularly his transactions with Russian banks.

Epstein's PR agent

Before she rebranded herself as a Silicon Valley investor, Masha Bucher had grown up in Russia and became a teenage star of Nashi, President Vladimir Putin's nationalist youth organisation. She was featured in the 2012 documentary Putin's Kiss. Yet within a decade, she was running an American PR firm whose client list included Jeffrey Epstein.

In 2011 she joined Runa Capital, a deep tech venture capital firm started by Serguei Beloussov, a Russian businessman who has since shortened his name to Serg Bell. She also worked at Bell's cybersecurity firm Acronis. Bell was one of several Russian-linked tech leaders under scrutiny by US authorities investigating whether the tech firms were part of a Kremlin effort to obtain cutting-edge technologies.

While Bell has distanced himself from Russian money after the country's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he previously had the financial support of at least one Russian businessman who has run into trouble in the US.

According to the Pandora Papers - a 2021 leak of offshore finance documents reviewed by Byline Times - Bell's fund Phystech Ventures received a $2 million commitment from Intellect Capital (Cyprus) Ltd., owned by Russian oligarch Andrey Muraviev, later indicted in the US for illegal political donations from Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. An indictment against Muraviev was unsealed in 2022, although he is still believed to be in Russia.

In 2014, Bucher launched M&A PR Studio - later MA Family - whose clients included Jeffrey Epstein, though the nature of its work for the disgraced financier remains unclear. Bucher did not respond to questions about her agency's PR work on behalf of the billionaire who had previously pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from underage girls, or to questions about her travels to Russia.

At the same tim,e she also became an angel investor. It has now rebranded as MA Family and its clients include Bell's company Runa Capital, Cointelegraph and the Czech software company JetBrains.

Bucher's first notable angel bet was NTech Lab, the Russian facial-recognition developer behind the FindFace app and other state surveillance projects. Corporate records show she held 200 shares at end-2016 before exiting the following year.

She then launched Day One Ventures, rebranding herself as a Silicon Valley fund manager. In public, Bucher framed a clean break with Moscow: "It is toxic money since 2014, after Crimea," she told the Washington Post in April 2022.

Documents obtained by Byline Times contradict that clean break. Leaked Russian border-crossing records show at least 22 trips to Russia between August 2014 and August 2021. On 24 August 2021 sh...