Was Epstein a Mossad spy, or did he just look like one?

The US Justice Department’s January release of over 3 million documents continues to stoke theories that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein operated as an asset for Israel’s Mossad. While no smoking-gun has emerged, the tranche includes emails amplifying Israeli political entanglements, self-aggrandizing claims of Jewish global control, and ties to figures like Ehud Barak and the Rothschilds. 

Journalist Whitney Webb and former Israeli intel officer Ari Ben-Menashe argue Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring doubled as a blackmail honeypot for foreign powers, with Israel at the center. Going Underground on RT discussed the Mossad allegations with Ben-Menashe last summer: 

Epstein denied any spy ties before his 2019 death. Israel dismissed the allegations. The web grew wider. 

Drawing on newly released documents and resurfaced correspondence, this piece looks at why the Epstein-Mossad question has returned.

Israeli power outreach

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak emerges prominently, with emails showing his close post-conviction ties to Epstein. A 2014 message from Barak quips: “What’s a terrible mistake of Pharaoh to ‘Let My People Go’. The Jewish people is flourishing everywhere as never before. Where is Egypt now?” Barak visited Epstein’s NYC townhouse over 30 times (2013-2017), often overnight, and co-founded surveillance firm Carbyne with ex-Israeli intel staff. 

According to the emails, former Israeli intelligence officer Yoni Koren – a veteran of covert operations and a trusted aide to Barak – also stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse multiple times for weeks between 2013 and 2015. 

New files also reveal Epstein coordinating a meeting with current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, involving Barclays CEO Jes Staley (later ousted over Epstein links) and investor Jacob Frenkel. 

Rothschild ambitions

A 2016 email to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel states that Epstein “represent[s] the Rothschilds” and proposes involving their bank (with $160 billion under management at the time) in tech investments. Thiel responds by suggesting a meeting in New York or “on island” (likely referring to Epstein’s notorious Little St. James in the United States Virgin Islands).

Epstein also corresponded multiple times with Ariane de Rothschild (CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Group), who met him over a dozen times between 2013 and 2019 and entered into a $25 million contract with Epstein’s Southern Trust in 2015 for risk analysis and algorithm-related services. A separate email exchange between Epstein and de Rothschild discusses a historical claim that Adolf Hitler lived in a homeless shelter in Vienna funded by Jewish families, including the Rothschilds, Epsteins, and Gutmanns – the convicted sex offender described it as “100 per cent true” and amusing in the context of a Harvard class, while de Rothschild called the persistence of related conspiracy theories “quite pathetic.”

Additionally, a forwarded 2016 email chain received by Epstein from Marc Rowan of Apollo Global Management details follow-up discussions between Apollo’s Gernot Lohr and Cynthia Tobiano (CFO of Edmond de Rothschild) on potential cooperation in financial products, including life settlements funds, capital-efficient investing for insurance clients, and a European financials equity vehicle. 

Mossad, Maxwell, blackmail

Epstein’s 2018 email recounts Robert Maxwell – Ghislaine’s father – attempting to blackmail Mossad for £400 million, leading to his “passed away” status. Maxwell, buried with Israeli state honors, eulogized by Shimon Peres, is widely regarded as having been an arms smuggler-spy in the 1980s. 

An FBI memo notes a person named Mark Iverson who describes meeting a young Ghislaine Maxwell in the fall of 1982 at a hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He portrays her as a recent Oxford graduate and pilot who invited him to a ranch near Santa Fe. He later claims he was warned she was a “spy.”

Iverson references a supposed “second black book” of Epstein’s contacts, containing “undisputed facts” like Robert Maxwell publishing information on his sisters for the US DOJ, his state funeral in Israel, and an organizational chart of operations at East 65th Street.

“I suspect Robert, Ghislaine, and Jeffery were all Mossad agents trying to blackmail leaders in the political and financial world,” Iverson wrote.

Jewish global control and ‘spying’

In a 2018 self-addressed email, Epstein recounts a dinner conversation in which he jokingly engaged with claims of Jewish influence over governments, ending with laughter and the word “guilty!”

Emails also show Epstein courting tech moguls like Jason Calacanis (Uber investor, podcaster), who in 2011 called him “pal” and offered contacts despite later claiming minimal ties from the early 2000s. Calacanis speculated Epstein was a “spy” trying to “compromise” people, yet aided his networking.

Epstein’s financial relationship with Les Wexner – the Victoria’s Secret tycoon who transferred power of attorney and the $77 million Manhattan townhouse to him – is referenced repeatedly. Wexner co-founded the Mega Group in 1991, a network of pro-Israel philanthropists. A 1997 NSA intercept linked the term “Mega” to possible Israeli intelligence activity, though this remains unconfirmed in connection to Epstein. 

Epstein victim Maria Farmer, who filed the first official complaint against him in 1996, has referred to “Jewish supremacists” running the pedophile financier’s network.

Bottom line

The most recent Epstein file release expands the evidentiary terrain surrounding his contacts, methods, and proximity to power. That context sustains the Mossad narrative and encourages a deeper impulse to question more.

The RT Newsroom is a group of multi-lingual journalists with at least a decade experience in Russian and international journalism. The team employs media reviews and cites original research to amplify holes in reporting on important stories. The team also works with original sources to provide the RT audience with well reported news and detail that they would not find in the mainstream media.