Since December 2013 there have been a rash of unusual deaths among workers at JPMorgan Chase, including alleged leaps from buildings and two separate alleged murder-suicides in New Jersey. A noteworthy number of the deaths have been among technology workers. With the exception of Julian Knott, who was a high level technology expert for JPMorgan in both London and later at the firm’s high tech Global Network Operations Center in Whippany, New Jersey, all of the individuals were under 40. (See names and incidents below.)
Last Thursday, 29-year old Thomas Hughes allegedly took his life by jumping from a luxury apartment building at 1 West Street in Manhattan. According to Hughes’ resume at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), he had previously interned at JPMorgan Chase, as well as held jobs at Citigroup and UBS after graduation from Northwestern University. Hughes was employed at investment bank, Moelis & Company LLC, at the time of his death. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and UBS pleaded guilty to criminal felony charges for conspiring to rig markets the week prior to Hughes’ alleged leap from the building.
The fact that JPMorgan Chase holds an estimated $179 billion in life insurance on its workers, and in some cases, prior workers, whose death benefit pays to the bank not the family of the employee, has raised concerns of more than just trading conspiracies at JPMorgan Chase.
Now, according to Sarah Butcher at EFinancialCareers, at least two executives at JPMorgan have forbidden their technology workers from explaining exactly what they do at the bank on their LinkedIn profiles. One tech worker imagines that it’s a plot to restrict their ability to market their skills to prospective competitors as JPMorgan moves tech workers from the glitter of London to cheaper corporate digs in Bournemouth, England or Glasgow, Scotland. Says one worker, according to Butcher, “We’ve been joking that the plan is to make us technologists invisible in the market and then forcing us to move to Bournemouth or Glasgow.”