but it's not under her own name, it is a name that is close to her name. The account is suspected of being hers but as I understand it not proven to be hers.

So that seems a good practice to me - use a name that could be arguably yours so that you are not hiding anything if caught out but enough not yours so there is plausible deniability. Then make a bunch of deeper cover names that you run that are harder to pin on you, if anyone is looking they are looking at the one that is close to your name.

but then maybe I've just read too many books.

> but it's not under her own name, it is a name that is close to her name.

Bit strange to do it under a name that is close to your name

but that's what my argument in the second paragraph was about?

Well the entire Epstein thing was laughably poorly run.

Sometimes the best place to hide something is in plain sight.

Yes, hiding in plain sight worked masterfully in this case. Nobody suspects anything about socialite Maxwell's secret reddit-moderating account that she named after herself. It's never even come up as a daft conspiracy theory.