Epstein files show Russian spy links as ‘world’s largest honey-trap’ | UK | News
Jeffrey Epstein offered Prince Andrew a young woman as a dinner date, assuring the British Crown that she was “Russian, beautiful and trustworthy”.
The convicted pedophile expanded his offer via email correspondence in 2010, writing to the now disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor: “I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with.”
The message appears in three million documents, as well as 180,000 images and 2,000 videos, in the Epstein files that the U.S. Department of Justice released Friday.
Young Russians among women offered sex
Documents reveal that young Russians were among the women Epstein provided for sex to wealthy and influential men around the world.
However, a huge amount of material suggests a darker connection to Russia: Epstein may have served as a long-standing agent for Moscow.
The documents include 1,056 files referring to Vladimir Putin and more than 9,000 files mentioning Moscow.
The materials show that Epstein met with the Russian President even after the American financier was convicted of procuring children for prostitution in 2008.
In 2010, Epstein emailed a colleague offering to help them get a Russian visa, explaining: “Putin has a friend, should I ask him?”
Files suggest the classic ‘kompromat’ operation
Some suggest that the hiring of Russian escorts may have involved Epstein running a classic “komromat” operation, luring influential businessmen, media moguls, statesmen and politicians into sexual encounters with women and recording these encounters for blackmail purposes.
He floated the idea of blackmail in a 2015 email to Sergei Belyakov, Russia’s deputy minister for economic development and a graduate of the FSB (Russian intelligence) academy.
Epstein warned him that “a Russian girl from Moscow was trying to blackmail a group of powerful businessmen” [sic] in New York. “This is bad for business for everyone involved.”
A later email to him appears to map out a strategy to deal with the woman and thwart her attempted blackmail.
“You should know that I feel it is necessary to contact some of my friends in the FSB,” Epstein wrote.
He warned the woman that blackmailing an American businessman planning to invest in Russia would make him a Russian “vrag naroda”, or “enemy of the people”, in the eyes of the FSB. He said he would be treated “extremely harshly”.
But in addition to intimidating her, he also intended to buy her silence by offering her $50,000 a month “for the next two years” in exchange for her giving up the blackmail attempt.
Epstein held dinner with ‘new Russian girls’
Messages in the latest Justice Department materials reveal the extraordinary efforts undertaken by Epstein and his associates to find attractive young Russian women.
The correspondence includes requests to arrange flights for models and escorts traveling from Moscow to Paris and from Moscow to New York.
In a 2010 email to a person whose name has been changed, Epstein wrote: “I’m hosting a dinner for some new Russian girls tomorrow… See you at 10.”
In 2012, she received an email from a redacted sender that read: “There are 2 Russian girls you should meet, one is 21, the other is 24. One is skinny, the other is curvy and super cute.”
The Telegraph detailed a 2013 email from Epstein detailing a claim that Bill Gates needed medication “to deal with the consequences of sex with Russian girls” and an allegation that the Microsoft founder tried to hide his sexually transmitted infection from his then-wife Melinda.
A spokesman for Mr Gates described the allegations as “absolutely ridiculous and completely false”.
Intelligence source describes ‘world’s largest honey trap’
An intelligence source told the Daily Mail: “You’ve got Andrew, you’ve got Bill Gates, Donald TrumpBill Clinton and others were placed in compromising positions on an island full of technology. “This is the largest honey trap operation in the world.”
All of the high-profile figures named in the files deny wrongdoing.
Kiev-based reporter Tanya Kozyreva, who focuses on high-level corruption around the world, wrote: “Epstein reportedly had contacts with Russian officials and Putin himself. Many of his daughters were Russian. Powerful Western elites had passed through his orbit. What are the chances that this wasn’t a classic Russian kompromat operation and the Justice Department was simply ignoring the elephant in the room?”
Allegedly hired by Robert Maxwell
Epstein reportedly entered the murky world of espionage through British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, who is believed to be working for the Mossad.
It is claimed that an oil baron working for Russian intelligence mediated this promotion.
Maxwell, whose daughter Ghislaine was Epstein’s long-term girlfriend, died in 1991 after falling off her yacht in the Atlantic. Lingering suspicions indicate that he was probably assassinated by Israeli agents.
In a 2018 email published in The Mirror, Epstein cited an investigative article alleging the British businessman threatened Israeli spy agency Mossad and later killed him.
The story said: “He [Maxwell] He told them that unless they gave him £400 million to save his crumbling empire, he would expose everything he had done for them.
“At the time, Margaret Thatcher had free access to Downing Street, Ronald Reagan to the White House, the Kremlin and corridors of power throughout Europe.
“Maxwell passed all the secrets he learned to the Mossad in Tel Aviv. They tolerated his excesses, his ostentations, and his lavish lifestyle and insatiable appetite for women.”
Emails show planned Putin meetings
By 2011, Epstein appeared to have developed such strong ties with the Russians that he was arranging meetings with Putin. An unidentified person sent him a correspondence in September that referred to a “date with Putin” during his upcoming trip to Russia.
The email said: “I talked to Igor. He said that the last time you were in Palm Beach you told him you had an appointment with Putin on September 16th and that he could buy a ticket to Russia to arrive a few days before you.”
New documents show that Epstein planned another meeting with the Russian leader in 2014, but it remains unclear whether this continued. Russian-backed forces shot down a Malaysian Airlines plane in July 2014, resulting in the deaths of approximately 300 people, potentially leading to the cancellation of the flight.
A Japanese intermediary told Epstein that the planned meeting with Putin now looked like “a bad idea after the plane crash.”
Epstein claimed he could advise Putin on Trump
According to newly released documents, Epstein informed Thorbjorn Jagland, then secretary general of the Council of Europe and a former prime minister of Norway, that he could advise Putin on the best way to deal with US president Donald Trump ahead of a key summit between the two leaders in Helsinki.
Epstein said he could provide Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov with “information” about the American president. “It’s not complicated. It’s [Trump] It has to be seen to get something. It’s that simple,” Epstein wrote.
The newest chapter of the Epstein documents also reveals Western intelligence agencies’ suspicions that Epstein served as a Mossad agent.
The FBI was informed by a source that “Epstein was close to Israel’s former prime minister, Ehud Barak, and received espionage training under him.”
In a declassified memo, the FBI said a confidential human source was “convinced that Epstein was a selected Mossad agent.”
Mr. Barak, who served in Israeli military intelligence earlier in his career, visited Epstein’s New York mansion more than 30 times between 2013 and 2017.
