Pokémon Go Players Overwhelm Epstein Island Pokéstop, Leading to Its Removal

Little Saint James, often referred to as Epstein Island, experienced a surge of virtual visitors over the weekend after Pokémon Go players discovered a Pokéstop located there. Although the developers quickly removed the Pokéstop, it was too late to prevent a significant number of players from heading to the island once owned by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The initial post that sparked this influx appeared on February 4 in a community forum, asking if anyone could check for anything on Epstein’s Island. In this context, “spoofing” refers to a technique that allows Pokémon Go players to manipulate their in-game GPS, enabling them to access any location they choose. Before its removal, I confirmed the presence of the “Sun Dial” Pokéstop on Little Saint James using this spoofing method.

Following this, several posts went viral on social media, including one on February 7. While it’s hard to determine the exact number of players who visited the island, many shared their strategies for reaching the location on the forum. On February 9, the developers confirmed that the Sun Dial Pokéstop had been taken out of the game.

However, one user on the forum managed to uncover how the Pokéstop ended up in Pokémon Go. In a now-deleted thread, they revealed that the Sun Dial Pokéstop was submitted as a point of interest through Ingress between 2020 and 2021. Ingress is Niantic’s other augmented reality mobile game and served as a precursor to Pokémon Go, meaning much of its data has been integrated into Pokémon Go. This user also discovered that the image for the Sun Dial Pokéstop was sourced from a YouTube video featuring drone footage of Little Saint James, dated July 2019. True to its name, the Pokéstop was indeed located at the site of a large sundial on the island.

Interestingly, this incident is just one of several Epstein-related stories emerging from the three million pages released by the Department of Justice on January 30, as Epic Games recently had to address a conspiracy theory claiming “Jeffrey Epstein Is Alive” in Fortnite.