A rumor is circulating around social media claiming that presidential candidate and former United States Vice-President Joe Biden has an island in the Caribbean which is right next to one that convicted sex offender and now deceased Jeffrey Epstein used to own.
Biden's secret island?
According to Snopes, the rumor began circulating on social media platforms in July and attempted to link presidential candidate Biden to the convicted sex offender Epstein who was found head after hanging himself in prison in August 2019.
The claim states that Biden was the owner of an island in the Caribbean that was right next to the island that was allegedly the center of Epstein's pedophile sex ring, Little St. James.
One of the posts on Twitter questions Biden about his private island in the Caribbean and the biggest mansion in Delaware. The user claims belong to the presidential candidate and several other luxurious properties. The original account that shared the tweet was demanding Biden to reveal his Cayman Island bank accounts.
Simply, former Vice-President Biden does not own an island in the Caribbean; neither does he have ownership of Delaware's biggest mansion.
The disinformation of the posts is the fact that the former vice president does not own an island across one that Epstein owns. Instead, it is his brother, James Biden, who has ownership of a Caribbean property.
While the brother does, in fact, own property in the area, social media posts that spread the claim have distorted the information about the possession as they continued to circulate on social media platforms.
James's property is not an island, but a small piece of property on Water Island found in the US Virgin Islands. The location encompasses an area of approximately 500 acres, and James purchased a single piece of land within the region in 2015. And in 2016, he sold part of the property to Scott Green, a lobbyist.
Looking into property and ownership
Online real estate database company Zillow, the Biden couple owns a residence in Wilmington, Delaware, and a vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Still, no other reports or records of properties indicate that the former vice president owned any other residence or island, as reported by Reuters.
Experts believe the rumor was based on the article that covered the deal between Green and James Biden, where the former vice president's brother sold one-third of the property for the cost of the entire land to the lobbyist who is also the co-founder of Lafayette Group.
According to Politico, it is unclear if the presidential candidate was aware of his brother's sale of a portion of the land. Reportedly, Green had a good relationship with the former vice president.
The evidence stands that Biden never owned property in the Caribbean, much less an island across Jeffrey Epstein's. Analysts believe the rumors originated from the presidential candidate's previous vacation in the US Virgin Islands and his brother making a deal with Green.
