The Shocking Origins of the Epstein Case, by Whitney Webb

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Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israel
by Whitney Webb
October 2nd, 2019
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ari-ben-m ... ce/262162/


Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera

Since the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein’s ties to intelligence, described in-depth in a recent MintPress investigative series, have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.



For those who have examined Epstein’s ties to intelligence, there are clear links to both U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence, leaving it somewhat open to debate as to which country’s intelligence apparatus was closest to Epstein and most involved in his blackmail/sex-trafficking activities. A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.

In an interview with Zev Shalev, former CBS News executive producer and award-winning investigative journalist for Narativ, the former senior executive for Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence, Ari Ben-Menashe, claimed not only to have met Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in the 1980s, but that both Epstein and Maxwell were already working with Israeli intelligence during that time period.

“They found a niche”

In an interview last week with the independent outlet Narativ, Ben-Menashe, who himself was involved in Iran-Contra arms deals, told his interviewer Zev Shalev that he had been introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by Robert Maxwell in the mid-1980s while Maxwell’s and Ben-Menashe’s involvement with Iran-Contra was ongoing. Ben-Menashe did not specify the year he met Epstein.

Ben-Menashe told Shalev that “he [Maxwell] wanted us to accept him [Epstein] as part of our group …. I’m not denying that we were at the time a group that it was Nick Davies [Foreign Editor of the Maxwell-Owned Daily Mirror], it was Maxwell, it was myself and our team from Israel, we were doing what we were doing.” Past reporting by Seymour Hersh and others revealed that Maxwell, Davies and Ben-Menashe were involved in the transfer and sale of military equipment and weapons from Israel to Iran on behalf of Israeli intelligence during this time period.

He then added that Maxwell had stated during the introduction that “your Israeli bosses have already approved” of Epstein. Shalev later noted that Maxwell “had an extensive network in Israel at the time, which included [the later Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon, according to Ben-Menashe.”

Ben-Menashe went on to say that he had “met him [Epstein] a few times in Maxwell’s office, that was it.” He also said he was not aware of Epstein being involved in arms deals for anyone else he knew at the time, but that Maxwell wanted to involve Epstein in the arms transfer in which he, Davies and Ben-Menashe were engaged on Israel’s behalf.


Ariel Sharon (right) meets with Robert Maxwell in Jerusalem on Feb. 20, 1990. Photo | AP

However, as MintPress reported in Part IV of the investigative series “Inside the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” Epstein was involved with several arms dealers during this period of time, some of whom were directly involved in Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. For instance, after leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, Epstein began working in the realms of shadow finance as a self-described “financial bounty hunter,” where he would both hunt down and hide money for powerful people. One of these powerful individuals was Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer with close ties to both Israeli and U.S. intelligence and one of the main brokers of Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. Epstein would later forge a business relationship with a CIA front company involved in another aspect of Iran-Contra, the airline Southern Air Transport, on behalf of Leslie Wexner’s company, The Limited.

During this period, it is also known that Epstein became well acquainted with the British arms dealer Sir Douglas Leese, who collaborated with Khashoggi on at least one British-Saudi arms deal in the 1980s. Leese would later introduce Epstein to Steven Hoffenberg, calling Epstein a “genius” and describing his lack of morals during that introduction. Thus, there are indications that Epstein was involved with Middle Eastern arms deals, including some related to Iran-Contra, during this period. In addition, Epstein would later claim (and then subsequently deny) having worked for the CIA during this period.

After having been introduced to Epstein, Ben-Menashe claimed that neither he nor Davies were impressed with Epstein and considered him “not very competent.” He added that Ghislaine Maxwell had “fallen for” Epstein and that he believed that the romantic relationship between his daughter and Epstein led Robert Maxwell to work to bring the latter into the “family business” — i.e., Maxwell’s dealings with Israeli intelligence. This information is very revealing, given that the narrative, until now at least, has been that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein did not meet and begin their relationship until after Robert Maxwell’s death in 1991, after which Ghislaine moved to New York.

Ben-Menashe says that well after the introduction, though again he does not specify what year, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein began a sexual blackmail operation with the purpose of extorting U.S. political and public figures on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. He stated:

In this case what really happened, my take on it, in the later thing, is that these guys were seen as agents. They weren’t really competent to do very much. And so they found a niche for themselves — blackmailing American and other political figures.”

He then confirmed, when prompted, that they were blackmailing Americans on behalf of Israeli intelligence.

In response to his statement, Zev Shalev replied, “But, you know, for most people it’s hard for them to think of Israel as being … blackmailing their leaders in the United States, it’s a very …” at which point, Ben-Menashe interrupted and the following exchange took place:

Ari Ben-Menashe: You’re kidding? [laughs]…. It was quite their M.O. Sleeping around is not a crime, it may be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime, but sleeping with underage girls is a crime.

Shalev: It was a crime in 2000 as well, but they let him off that…

Ben-Menashe: And that it is [why] always so he [Epstein] made sure these girls were underage.

In addition, when Shalev asked Ben-Menashe about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ben-Menashe stated “After a while, you know, what Mr. Epstein was doing was collecting intelligence on people in the United States. And so if you want to go to the U.S. if you’re a high-profile politician you want to know information about people.” Ben-Menashe subsequently stated that Barak was obtaining compromising information (i.e., blackmail) that Epstein had acquired on powerful people in the United States.

PROMIS, sex, and blackmail

If Robert Maxwell did recruit Epstein and bring him into the “family business” and the world of Israeli intelligence, as Ben-Menashe has claimed, it provides supporting evidence for information provided to MintPress by a former U.S. intelligence official, who chose to remain anonymous in light of the sensitivity of the claim.

This source, who has direct knowledge of the unauthorized use of PROMIS to support covert U.S. and Israeli intelligence projects, told MintPress that “some of the proceeds from the illicit sales of PROMIS were made available to Jeffrey Epstein for use in compromising targets of political blackmail.” As was noted in a Mintpress series on the Epstein scandal, much of Epstein’s funding also came from Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner, who has documented ties to both organized crime and U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

After the PROMIS software was stolen from its rightful owner and developer, Inslaw Inc., through the collusion of both U.S. and Israeli officials, it was marketed mainly by two men: Earl Brian, a close aide to Ronald Reagan, later U.S. envoy to Iran and close friend of Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan; and Robert Maxwell. Brian sold the bugged software through his company, Hadron Inc., while Maxwell sold it through an Israeli company he acquired called Degem. Before and following Maxwell’s acquisition of Degem, the company was a known front for Mossad operations and Mossad operatives in Latin America often posed as Degem employees.

With Maxwell — Epstein’s alleged recruiter and father of Epstein’s alleged madam — having been one of the main salespeople involved in selling PROMIS software on behalf of intelligence, he would have been in a key position to furnish Epstein’s nascent sexual blackmail operation with the proceeds from the sale of PROMIS.

This link between Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and the PROMIS software scandal is notable given that the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been for blackmail purposes on U.S. public figures and politicians, as was described in a recent MintPress report.

Can an ex-spy be trusted?

When dealing in the world of deception and intrigue that defines intelligence operations, it is often difficult to determine whether any individual linked to an intelligence agency is telling the truth. Indeed, in the United States, there are examples of elected intelligence officials committing perjury and lying to Congress on several occasions with no consequences, and of intelligence officials feeding politically motivated and untrue information to agency assets in the media.

So, are Ari Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Epstein and the Maxwells trustworthy? In addition to the aforementioned, corroborating information for his claims, a review of Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence career suggests this is the case.


Ari Ben-Menashe arrives at Harare International Airport, in Zimbabwe, Feb. 22, 2002. Photo | AP

Prior to his arrest in November 1989, Ben-Menashe was a high-ranking officer in a special unit of Israeli military intelligence. He would later claim that his arrest for attempting to sell American-made weapons to Iran was politically motivated, as he had threatened to expose what the U.S. government had done with the stolen PROMIS software if the U.S. did not cease providing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with chemical weapons. Ben-Menashe was later acquitted when a U.S. court determined that his involvement in the attempted sale of military equipment to Iran was done on behalf of the Israeli state.

After his arrest, Ben-Menashe was visited in prison by Robert Parry, the former Newsweek contributor and Associated Press reporter who would later found and run Consortium News until his recent passing last year. Parry remembered that, during that interview, “Ben-Menashe offered me startling new information about the Iran-Contra scandal, which I thought that I knew quite well.”

Israel’s government immediately began to attack Ben-Menashe’s credibility following his interview with Parry, and claimed that Ben-Menashe had never worked for Israeli intelligence. When Parry soon found evidence that Ben-Menashe had indeed served in Israeli military intelligence, Israel’s government was then forced to admit that he had worked for military intelligence, but only as a “low-level translator.” Yet, the documentation Parry had uncovered described Ben-Menashe as having served in “key positions” and performed “complex and sensitive assignments.”

-- The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, by Seymour M. Hersh, © 1991 by Seymour M. Hersh

A year later, Ben-Menashe would be interviewed by another journalist, Seymour Hersh. It would be Ben-Menashe who first revealed to Hersh secrets about Israel’s nuclear program and the fact that British media mogul Robert Maxwell was an Israeli spy, revelations that Hersh would not only independently corroborate but include in his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Hersh was then sued by Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell-owned Mirror Group for libel. The case was later settled in Hersh’s favor, as the claims Hersh had made were true and not libelous. As a result, the Mirror Group paid Hersh for damages, covered his legal costs, and issued him a formal apology.

After Ben-Menashe’s interviews by Hersh and Parry, Israel’s government was apparently concerned enough about what Ben-Menashe would tell congressional investigators that it attempted to kidnap him and bring him back to Israel to face state charges, much like Israeli intelligence had done to Israel’s nuclear-weapons whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. The plan was foiled largely thanks to Parry.

Parry, who broke many key stories related to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and beyond, was tipped off by a U.S. intelligence source about a joint U.S.-Israel plan to have Ben-Menashe first be denied entry to the United States on his planned trip to give congressional testimony. Per the plan, Ben-Menashe would be denied entry to the U.S. in Los Angeles and then be deported to Israel, where he would have stood trial for “exposing state secrets.” Parry called Ben-Menashe and convinced him to delay his flight until he secured a guarantee for safe passage from the U.S. government.

Ben-Menashe subsequently gave a sworn statement to the House Judiciary Committee that mostly focused on U.S.-Israel collusion regarding the theft and creation of a “backdoor” into the PROMIS software. Ben-Menashe offered to name names and provide corroborating evidence for several of his claims if he was offered immunity by the committee, which, for whatever reason. declined that request.

Prior to the conclusion of the Hersh “libel” trial, which would later uphold Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Robert Maxwell’s Mossad activities as true, there was a concerted effort in the U.S. press to downplay Ben-Menashe’s credibility. For instance, Newsweek — in an article on Ben-Menashe entitled “One Man, Many Tales” — claimed that “inconsistencies may undermine Ben-Menashe’s testimony in the British courtroom proceedings,” citing inconsistencies from sources in Israel’s government and Israeli intelligence as well as Ben-Menashe’s ex-wife and Israeli journalist Shmuel (or Samuel) Segev, a former IDF colonel. It goes without saying that such sources had much to gain from any effort to discredit Ben-Menashe’s claims.

According to Parry, this media campaign, which employed American journalists with close ties to Israel’s government and intelligence agencies, was very successful “in marginalizing Ben-Menashe by 1993, at least in the eyes of the Washington Establishment.” After a years-long media campaign to discredit Ben-Menashe, “the Israelis seemed to view him as a declining threat, best left alone. He was able to pick up the pieces of his life, creating a second act as an international political consultant and businessman arranging sales of grain.” The effort to marginalize Ben-Menashe has continued well into recent years, with mainstream news outlets still referring to him as a “self-described ex-Israeli spy” — despite the well-documented fact that Ben-Menashe worked for Israeli intelligence — as a means of downplaying his claims regarding his time in Israel’s intelligence service.

After the conclusion of the Hersh libel trial, Ben-Menashe became an international political consultant who “surrounded his far-flung business activities in secrecy and got involved with some controversial international figures, such as Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe,” and

“conducted his international consulting business … in a wide variety of global hotspots, including conflict zones,” according to Parry. In addition to Mugabe, Ben-Menashe has also recently come under fire for his consulting work on behalf of Sudan’s military junta and Venezuelan opposition politician Henri Falcón.

Ben-Menashe has also maintained ties to several different intelligence services and eventually became a controversial whistleblower whose information led to the arrest of the former head of Canada’s Security Intelligence Review Committee, Arthur Porter.

As far as his character is concerned, Parry noted that Ben-Menashe could often be “his own worst enemy” and that, even though Parry considered his information regarding Iran-Contra and PROMIS reliable and noted that much of it was later corroborated, he “often compound[ed] his media problem by treating journalists in a high-handed manner, either due to his suspicions of them or his arrogance.”

Bill Hamilton, the original developer of the PROMIS software and head of Inslaw Inc., also found Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to be credible, though he expressed doubts about Ben-Menashe’s character.

Hamilton told MintPress the following about Ben-Menashe:

Ari Ben Menashe was the first source to tell us reliable information about the role of Rafi Eitan and Israeli intelligence vis-a-vis PROMIS but, in the end, of course, he was a clandestine services-type guy whose official duties include the ability and willingness to lie, cheat, and steal.”

A threat revived

While Ben-Menashe may have been viewed as a “declining threat” after the early 1990s, his plans to meet with Robert Parry of Consortium News years later in 2012 to discuss Iran-Contra and other covert dealings of the 1980s appeared to change that. Right before he planned to travel from Canada to the United States to meet with Parry and “finally prove” the truthfulness of his past claims, a fire-bomb was thrown into his Montreal home, destroying it.


Ari Ben-Menashe surveys the damage to his home after it was mysteriously firebombed. Photos | Robert Parry

Though Canadian media referred to the incendiary device as a “molotov cocktail,” Consortium News reported that “the arson squad’s initial assessment is said to be that the flammable agent was beyond the sort of accelerant used by common criminals,” leading to speculation that the accelerant was military-grade.

Had it not been for the bomb, the origins of which Canadian police failed to determine, Ben-Menashe would have traveled to the U.S. alongside a “senior Israeli intelligence figure” to be interviewed by Parry. The other intelligence-linked individual, according to Parry, “concluded that the attack was meant as a message from Israeli authorities to stay silent about the historical events that he was expected to discuss.”

Though neither Ben-Menashe nor Parry directly blamed Israel’s government for the destruction of Ben-Menashe’s home, Parry noted that the bombing did succeed in “intimidating Ben-Menashe, shutting down possible new disclosures of Israeli misconduct from the other intelligence veteran, and destroying records that would have helped Ben-Menashe prove whatever statements he might make.”

While Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence associations with controversial governments and individuals have given plenty of fodder to the still thriving media campaign to discredit his claims about covert U.S.-Israel operations in the 1980s, there remain troubling indications that the Israeli government sees his information on decades-old events as a threat.

Now, with the major efforts by powerful Americans and Israelis to distance themselves from Jeffrey Epstein and other figures associated with his depraved sex trafficking operation, Ben-Menashe may soon again find his reputation — and perhaps more — under fire.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

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These Scrubbed Reports Reveal New Secrets Into the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein Relationship
by Whitney Webb
October 14th, 2019
https://www.mintpressnews.com/scrubbed- ... ip/262330/


Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera

While the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has largely faded from media coverage in the United States, it has continued to attract attention abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom in connection with Epstein’s long-standing association with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and the Queen’s son.

The Epstein-Prince Andrew relationship has long been a fascination of the U.K. press, with numerous articles dating back to the early 2000s detailing the most outrageous aspects of their relationship. Prior to that, Epstein had also garnered attention from U.K. newspapers regarding his association with Ghislaine Maxwell, whose reputation in the U.K. is rather notorious, as was that of her father, Robert Maxwell.

Yet, since Epstein’s arrest in July, many of these older articles on Epstein and Maxwell, as well as those focusing on the Epstein-Prince Andrew relationship, have disappeared from the archives of several prominent U.K. media outlets that reported on these relationships years ago.

Several of these articles, though largely scrubbed from the internet, were recently obtained by MintPress and a review of their contents makes the likely motive behind their disappearance clear: several articles not only reference Epstein’s connection to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence years before the first investigation into Epstein’s exploitation of minors had even begun, but also reveal surprising aspects of Prince Andrew’s involvement with Epstein that strongly suggest that the Prince partook in illicit sexual activities with minors to a much greater extent than has previously been reported.

New, disturbing details of Prince Andrew’s early links to Epstein

Since Epstein was arrested the first time in 2006 and even more so after he was arrested again this past July, those named in press reports as his associates have made every effort to distance themselves from the accused pedophile and sex trafficker. For this reason, press reports that discuss Epstein long before there was any hint of the larger scandal are particularly important for understanding the true nature of Epstein’s past associations with the rich and powerful.

In light of what is now known about Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and sex trafficking activities, several reports from the late 1990s and early 2000s contain details long since forgotten regarding Epstein’s relationship with Prince Andrew.

One particularly censored article that appeared in London’s Evening Standard in January 2001, for instance, gives several indications regarding the apparent entrapment of Prince Andrew as part of Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation, which is now known to have been connected to intelligence — specifically Israeli military intelligence, according to recent revelations in the case.

The article, written by Evening Standard journalist Nigel Rosser, quotes a personal friend of both Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein as saying the following about their friendship with Prince Andrew:

A friend of the couple said: "She is able to entrance anyone she chooses and Epstein can pay for anything anyone wants. She is very manipulative, and winds people round her little finger.
The whole Andrew thing is probably being done for Epstein.

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2001 Evening Standard article

Another friend of Maxwell and Epstein made similar claims that appear in the same article:

Another friend said: "Ghisla-ine is manipulating him and he's too naive to realise it. She's his social fixer and he's going along with it - why?
Because I think Epstein's fantastically impressed by it all. It's all very premeditated.

A screenshot from the same Evening Standard article

The article further describes Epstein and Prince Andrew as having a “curious symbiotic relationship,” adding that “wherever Ghislaine is seen with Prince Andrew, Epstein isn’t far behind.”

These quotes are particularly telling now that it is a matter of record that Epstein was seeking out rich and powerful individuals and entrapping them with minors for the purpose of blackmail. The fact that personal friends of Epstein and Maxwell at the time openly stated that their “manipulative” relationship with Prince Andrew was “very premeditated” and “probably being done for Epstein” strongly suggests that not only was the Prince entrapped, but that this type of entrapment activity was known to occur among those who were close to Epstein and Maxwell at the time.

Prince Andrew — as a member of the Royal Family, which is very protective of its social reputation, as well as the U.K. envoy for investment and trade — certainly fits into the category of people that Epstein entrapped on behalf of intelligence: rich, politically powerful, wary of damaging their social reputation, and thus susceptible to blackmail.

Notably, the year this article was published (2001), is the same year that Epstein’s most well-known accuser and victim, Virginia Giuffre (then Virginia Roberts), claims that she was introduced to Prince Andrew by Maxwell and Epstein and forced to have sex with the Prince on at least three occasions. She has also claimed that Epstein would subsequently instruct her to describe the encounters in order to learn compromising information about the Prince’s sexual habits and preferences. Her claims regarding Epstein’s trafficking of her, specifically to Prince Andrew, have since been largely corroborated by photographic evidence, flight logs, and public records.


This undated photo released by Virginia Giuffre shows Prince Andrew posing with a young Giuffre, Ghislaine Maxwell is shown standing in the background

While it appears that Prince Andrew was deliberately entrapped as part of Epstein’s intelligence-linked sexual blackmail operation, the article further suggests that Andrew’s involvement with the minors exploited by Epstein went far beyond his alleged three encounters with Giuffre.

Rosser quotes a friend of Prince Andrew’s ex-wife Sara Ferguson as saying that Andrew “used to be smart when he came back from abroad…He’s started having a girl massage him…He even travels abroad with his own massage mattress.”

During this same time period, Epstein and Maxwell also introduced Prince Andrew to “sex aid entrepreneur” Christine Drangsholt during a trip to Mar-a-Lago and describes Andrew traveling to Los Angeles, where he was seen “flirting…with a group of young girls,” and to Phuket, Thailand where he “wandered around the sex bars in the area’s red light district.” The Los Angeles trip saw Andrew accompanied by artist and close friend of Michael Jackson, Brett Livingstone Strong, and Ghislaine Maxwell accompanied Andrew to Thailand.

The mentions of massages from a “girl” and Andrew traveling around with Maxwell and Epstein while bringing along “his own massage mattress,” are particularly striking given what is now known about Epstein’s sex trafficking and sexual blackmail operation. Court documents, police reports, and other evidence have since made it clear that “massage” was the code word Epstein and his co-conspirators used for sex with the minors he exploited and massage tables and sex toys were frequently present together in the rooms of his various residences where he forced underage girls to engage in sexual acts with him and others.

Most notable of all is the fact that claims of Prince Andrew receiving “massages” from girls during his trips with Epstein and Maxwell were published in January 2001, at least two months before Virginia Giuffre states that she was first introduced to and forced to have sex with the Prince in March of 2001. This means that the claims of Epstein- and Maxwell-brokered “massages” refer to at least one other girl, strongly suggesting that Andrew’s involvement with minors exploited by Epstein is greater than has been recently acknowledged.

Other recently reported information has added to the likelihood that Prince Andrew engaged in illicit activities with more minors than Virginia Giuffre. For instance, the FBI recently expanded its probe into Epstein’s sex trafficking network to include a specific focus on the Prince’s role. The FBI has claimed that they are reviewing claims regarding Prince Andrew made by other Epstein victims aside from Giuffre, but did not specify the nature of those claims.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s open secret

Media reports cite Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell as having developed a close relationship at least by February 2000, when Andrew had spent a week at Epstein’s controversial New York penthouse at 9 East 71st Street. One report published in 2000 by London’s Sunday Times claimed that the two were introduced by Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, often referred to as “Fergie” in the press, and further claims that this introduction had taken place several years prior. Epstein is alleged to have first been introduced to Andrew via Maxwell in 1999.

A friend of the couple said: "She is able to entrance anyone she chooses and Epstein can pay for anything anyone wants. She is very manipulative, and winds people round her little finger.
The whole Andrew thing is probably being done for Epstein."

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2000 Sunday Times article

Years after this introduction was made, Jeffrey Epstein would provide financial assistance to Ferguson at Prince Andrew’s behest by paying Ferguson’s former personal assistant £15,000, allegedly in order to allow for “a wider restructuring of Sarah’s £5 million debts to take place,” according to The Telegraph.

Oddly, by April of that year, Maxwell and Prince Andrew were spotted by their fellow diners at a posh New York restaurant holding hands, prompting both the Prince and Maxwell to claim that their relationship was merely “platonic.” However, a separate report from 2007 in the Evening Standard refers to Maxwell as one of Prince Andrew’s former girlfriends.

Within a year of their close relationship having become public, Andrew and Ghislaine were reported to have gone on eight different vacations together, of which Epstein accompanied them for five. Andrew also brought Maxwell and Epstein to celebrate the Queen’s birthday in 2000 as his personal guests.

Several reports from this period also provide interesting insight into Maxwell’s business activities and private life. One article from 2000, published in London’s Sunday Times, states that “for all her high-profile appearances on Manhattan’s A-List merry-go-round, she [Maxwell] is secretive to the point of paranoia and her business affairs are deeply mysterious.” It goes on to say that Maxwell “has been building a business empire as opaque as father’s” — referencing Robert Maxwell’s business empire, which included multiple front companies for Israeli intelligence — and adds that “her office in Manhattan refuses to confirm even the nature or the name of her business.”

On her relationship with Epstein, it states that “he’s always kept her secrets, no one knows what their relationship is really about.” An article from 2001 claims that Maxwell’s Manhattan lifestyle, her New York residence and her vehicles were all purchased by Epstein and that she was employed as his “consultant” while also acting as his social organizer and interior designer.

One report on Maxwell — which was published by the Evening Standard in 2003, years before Epstein was first publicly revealed to be exploiting minors — contains very telling information about Maxwell’s work for Epstein. It states “Ghislaine has risen, largely thanks to property developer Epstein bankrolling her, to become queen of the billionaires’ social circuit,” adding that “Jeffrey only likes billionaires or very young women and uses Ghislaine as his social pimp.” It then discusses “rumors” that Maxwell was hosting “bizarre parties at her house to which she invites a dozen or so young girls, then brandishes a whip and teaches them how to improve their sexual techniques.”

Given what is now known about Maxwell’s role as Epstein’s procurer of underage girls and her role in “training” them in sexual techniques, this passage — again from 2003 — reveals that Epstein’s and Maxwell’s dark acts were pretty much an open secret for years prior to Epstein’s first arrest in 2007.

Jeffrey Epstein, spy and property mogul?

One recurring theme in many of these older reports from the U.K. is their mention of Epstein’s alleged ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence. For instance, Nigel Rosser’s 2001 article contains the following passage:

More at home in the world of international finance than the English countryside, the immensely wealthy financier and property developer maintains a mysterious presence in New York. He has a license to carry a concealed weapon, once claimed to have worked for the CIA although he now denies it - and owns properties all over America.
Once he arrived at the London home of a British arms dealer bringing a gift - a New York police-issue pump-action riot gun. "God knows hoe he got it into the country," a friend said.

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2001 Evening Standard article

Another article, published in 1992 in the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday, describes “rumors” that linked Epstein to the CIA and the Mossad and claimed that he had worked as “a corporate spy hired by big businesses to uncover money that had been embezzled.” In addition, an article published in 2000 in London’s Sunday Times also states of Epstein that “nobody knows whether he’s a concert pianist, property developer, CIA agent, a math teacher or a member of Mossad.”

Although she owns her own apartment on the Upper East Side, Ghislaine chooses to live with Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier who now works for Leslie Wexner, owner of the upmarket lingerie outfit Victoria's Secret. "He's Mr. Enigmatic. Nobody knows whether he's a concert pianist, property developer, a CIA agent, a math teacher or a member of Mossad," says a New York social observer.
"Jeffrey provides some financial support and he's always kept her secrets, but nobody knows what their relationship is really about."

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2000 Sunday Times article

Notably, these rumors of Epstein’s links to intelligence have since been confirmed. The CIA-Mossad links to Epstein were detailed in a recent MintPress investigative series and several mainstream media reports have corroborated Epstein’s time as a self-described “financial bounty hunter” who hunted down embezzled funds and also hid stolen money for powerful people and governments.

Another odd commonality among these now-scrubbed articles on Epstein from the 1990s and early 2000s is that the majority of them refer to Epstein not as a “financier” or “hedge fund manager,” as has become common in more recent reports, but as a “New York property developer” and even as a “property mogul.”

For instance, the 2001 Evening Standard article introduces Epstein as an “immensely powerful New York property developer and financier” with an “intensively secret business life” who “owns properties all over the country [the U.S.].” It also states that Epstein had made millions from “his business links with the likes of Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner” during the 1990s and beyond.

Epstein was a guest at the Queen's birthday party at Windsor and travelled with Ghislaine to Andrew's country weekend at Sandringham before Christmas.
He has made many millions out of his business links with the likes of Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner, whose trust he runs.

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2001 Evening Standard article

Wexner, in addition to his other close financial ties to Epstein, was involved in several Manhattan real estate deals with Epstein and Epstein’s brother Mark while Donald Trump was then best known for his career as a New York property developer and real estate mogul. Trump is also cited in a separate article from January 2001 as being good friends with both Prince Andrew and his ex-wife. In addition, this article’s claim regarding Epstein’s most notable “business links” in 2001 contradicts Bill Gates’ recent assertions that he never had any business relationship with Epstein and did not meet with him until 2013. Notably, Gates’ former chief scientific adviser was recently named as an alternate executor for Epstein’s will and Gates appears on the flight logs of Epstein’s now-infamous private plane. Gates, one of the world’s richest men, has since claimed that he only had met with Epstein in order to meet other wealthy people and to discuss “philanthropy.”


Donald and Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida in 2000. Photo | Davidoff Studios

Another article in the Evening Standard refers to Epstein as a “property mogul.” Several other articles — such as a 2000 article from Australia’s Sunday Mail, a 1995 article from Australia’s Sun Herald, and a 1995 article from the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday — also refer to Epstein as chiefly a “property developer.” Interestingly, references to Epstein as a property developer continued to occur (though less frequently) after his first arrest in 2007 and then again after his recent arrest this past July, yet oddly only in non-U.S. newspapers. Another article states that Ghislaine Maxwell had sold property on Epstein’s behalf and was also involved in the New York real estate market.

While several articles in the early 2000s describe Epstein as both “property developer” and “financier,” even earlier articles about Epstein refer to him exclusively as a “property developer.” For instance, the 1992 article in the Mail on Sunday cited above referred to Epstein as “a shadowy, almost maverick New York property developer” and noted that, even then, Epstein appeared “to have an inexhaustible supply of money and yet no one seems able to answer the question of precisely what the source.”

As will be revealed in an upcoming MintPress investigative series, these references allude to Epstein’s shady business activities in the New York and Palm Beach real estate markets from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s that were used to launder massive amounts of money for organized crime and intelligence. It is likely for this reason that Epstein’s real estate activities during this period have been so deliberately ignored by the U.S. press, even though other aspects of his financial activities were heavily scrutinized in recent months.

Indeed, in examining Epstein’s involvement in real estate markets, particularly in New York, it becomes clear that those activities have no shortage of controversial tie-ins to the current U.S. presidential administration as well as major New York power players involved in suspect financial activity immediately prior to the September 11 attacks as well as the 2008 financial crisis. All of those connections and more will be explored in MintPress’ upcoming investigative series on the financial crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and their broader implications.

Correction | An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated the name of the artist that accompanied Prince Andrew to Los Angeles in 2000 as Bruce, as opposed to Brett, Livingstone Strong.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

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Leslie Wexner’s Young Global Leaders. In this excerpt from her upcoming book, Whitney examines the Wexner Foundation’s origins and the ties of Leslie Wexner’s philanthropy and Jeffrey Epstein to Harvard as well as the now infamous Young Global Leaders program of the World Economic Forum.
by Whitney Webb
August 8, 2022

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The following is an adapted excerpt from Whitney Webb’s upcoming book, One Nation Under Blackmail, which examines the network behind Jeffrey Epstein and traces it back to the merging of American organized crime and intelligence beginning in the early 1940s. In this excerpt, Whitney examines the Wexner Foundation’s origins and the ties of Leslie Wexner’s philanthropy and Jeffrey Epstein to Harvard as well as the now infamous Young Global Leaders program of the World Economic Forum. Whitney’s book can be pre-ordered here, here or here.

The Origins of the Wexner Foundation

It is hard to know exactly when the Wexner Foundation was originally created. The official website for the foundation states clearly in one section that the Wexner Foundation was first set up in 1983 alongside the Wexner Heritage Foundation. However, the 2001 obituary of Wexner’s mother, Bella, states that she and her son created the foundation together in 1973. Regardless of the exact year, Wexner’s mother, Bella, became the secretary of the foundation (just as she had with his company The Limited), which Wexner wanted people to refer to as a “joint philanthropy.”

The foundation’s website states that the original purpose of the Wexner Foundation was to assist “emerging professional Jewish leaders in North America and mid-career public officials in Israel.” Per the website, Wexner’s main philanthropic endeavors were created after Wexner “reached the conclusion that what the Jewish people needed most at that moment was stronger leadership.” As a result, Wexner sought to focus his foundation’s attention chiefly on the “development of leaders.” As a consequence of this, Wexner’s programs have molded the minds and opinions of prominent North American, as well as Israeli, Jewish leaders who went on to work at the top levels of finance, government and, even, intelligence.

One of the Wexner Foundation’s original advisors, and perhaps one of the most important, was Robert Hiller, who had previously been executive vice president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. Robert I. Hiller was described in an article in The Baltimore Sun as a “nonprofit leader who helped develop community fundraising strategies and was active in the Soviet Jewry movement.”

As well as being known as a community development leader, Hiller was also an executive with Community Chest of Metropolitan Detroit in 1948. In that position, Hiller helped bring together corporations such as General Motors to create “social service groups under an umbrella organization, a precursor to collective fundraising efforts today.” In 1950, Hiller became the associate director of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland and six years later he also joined the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh. He would spend another nine years in that position before his move to Baltimore.

In his autobiography, Hiller wrote about his extensive dealings with various Israeli heads-of-states, saying: “I had pictures of every Israeli Prime Minister from David Ben Gurion to Menachem Begin. I would have many more with Begin because he was the current Prime Minister. My favorite picture, however, (it was to be hung) was taken in Washington, D.C. at a gala party where Marianne and I were with the then Ambassador, Yitzhak Rabin, and his wife, Leah.”

Hiller was extremely proactive when it came to seeding suitable, high ranking candidates for appropriate positions in Jewish community organizations, a task that the Wexner Foundation would later reproduce on a grand scale via its various Fellowship programs and subsequently apply to the worlds of business and government. One example of this matchmaking was the appointment of Larry Moses as assistant to Rabbi Maurice Corson. Corson is credited as having co-founding the Wexner Foundation with Leslie Wexner in 1983, per the foundation’s website, and he served as its first president. After Corson left that post, Moses stepped in to serve as the foundation’s president.

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Maurice Corson and Leslie Wexner in an undated photo, Source: The Wexner Foundation

Hiller wrote in his autobiography that he had “personally enticed” Moses to become Rabbi Corson’s assistant and this later resulted in Larry Moses becoming the executive vice president of the Wexner Foundation. When Hiller was 33 years-old, he was presented with an opportunity to become a member of the Big 16, which was classed as an informal grouping of the 16 largest communities in North America headed by prominent Jewish executive members. One of the people who Hiller connected with the Wexner Foundation was originally meant to lead the Big 16 Federation, Fern Katelman. Katelman declined this prestigious leadership role in order to join Larry Moses, where he became his assistant at the Wexner Foundation.

Hiller, when revisiting his life, would state: “One of the most stimulating relationships I had was with the Wexner (Leslie) Foundation of Columbus, Ohio, and New York City. Rabbi Maurice Corson was the foundation president. My relationship with him started in Baltimore where he had been a new rabbi for one of the city’s largest Conservative synagogues. He came from Philadelphia with an interesting background and credentials.”

Hiller goes on to write: “He [Corson], however, seemed bored and uneasy with the routine of being a synagogue rabbi. When he and the congregation decided to part company, I assisted in getting him an executive position with the United Israel Appeal of Canada. He did so well that he was recruited to return to the U.S.A. in an executive position with International B’nai B’rith. Leslie Wexner met him through his work with B’nai B’rith, and when Les began to put together a formal foundation, he engaged Rabbi Corson as the chief executive.” B’nai B’rith is a “Jewish fraternal organization” that was founded in the 19th century and is modeled as a secret society, leading some to compare the group to the freemasons.

Hiller went on to assist Corson in the initial stages of setting up the Wexner Foundation while they put together “a distinguished advisory group” with the group meeting in Columbus, Ohio, and New York City. Hiller describes assisting Corson in creating the foundation, which Hiller called: “an unusual foundation with its own agenda and programming.” After several years of service to the Wexner Foundation, Hiller retired from his consultancy role and was replaced by Philip Bernstein, the former executive of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds (CJF).

Now, it makes sense to examine Rabbi Maurice S. Corson himself. Corson was a prominent Jewish educator who, as previously mentioned, already had associations with various Jewish welfare organizations prior to serving as co-founder and then president of the Wexner Foundation. Corson had been ordained as a rabbi in 1960 through the Jewish Theological Seminary, after previously studying at the University of Cincinnati where he graduated in 1955. By 1964, Corson had become the president of the Religious Education Society in Seattle, and he remained in that position until 1966.

Over the following decade, he began working for the Zionist Organization America in Atlantic City and, shortly thereafter, became the Senior Rabbi at the Chizuk Amuna Congregation, a position he held from 1976 until 1979. Around this time, Hiller helped Corson get an executive position with the United Israel Appeal of Canada, where he went on to work for only a year before joining B’nai B’rith.

Once recruited into serving a leadership role within the influential “secret society,” Corson worked as director of development for B’nai B’rith International, based in New York City, between 1980 until 1985. During this very period, the board of overseers of B’nai B’rith included Edmond Safra, a notorious banker with close ties to Robert Maxwell and later Jeffrey Epstein; Edgar Bronfman, scion of the family behind Seagrams whose fortunes have long been tied organized crime and Max Fisher, a Detroit businessman who re-launched the Jewish Agency, worked as a “private” diplomat on Israel matters and later served as a mentor to Leslie Wexner.

As noted previously, while Corson was at B’nai B’rith, he first met Leslie Wexner, who persuaded him to co-found the Wexner Foundation (per the version of events on the foundation’s website). Although he had been recruited by Wexner and subsequently left the B’nai B’rith organization, Corson became a member of the executive committee of B’nai B’rith Hillel Commission in Washington in 1987.

Another key figure who is important to mention is the co-founder of the Wexner Heritage Foundation, Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman. Depending on which part of the Wexner Foundation site you visit, that Foundation is listed as having been founded in either 1983 or 1985. However, Friedman is clearly listed as the co-founder of the foundation and as having served as its president for a decade.

The Wexner Heritage Foundation, per its https://web.archive.org/web/20220103195922/https://www.wexnerfoundation.org/our-story/website, was created “to strengthen volunteer leaders in the North American Jewish Community.” It spawned the Wexner Heritage program, which “provides young North American Jewish volunteer leaders with a two-year intensive Jewish learning program, deepening their understanding of Jewish history, values, and texts and enriching their leadership skills.”

Friedman was a US Army chaplain during World War II and also served as an “adviser on Jewish affairs to General Lucius D. Clay, the commander of American occupation forces in Germany.” He was later personally recruited by David Ben-Gurion, who went on to serve as Israel’s first Prime Minister, to join the paramilitary group, the Haganah. The Haganah was the pre-cursor to the Israeli military and was armed in large part by organized crime-linked networks. Per the New York Times, “as a member of the Haganah, Rabbi Friedman participated in the Aliyah Bet, the illegal transport of European Jews to Palestine.”

From 1954 to 1971, Friedman was the chief executive of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and, in that role “raised more than $3 billion to support the fledgling state of Israel.” During this period, UJA was intimately involved in the relaunching of the Jewish Agency by Wexner’s mentor Max Fisher in 1970. Fisher was also intimately involved with the related United Israel Appeal. Throughout the 1980s, Wexner was “one of the largest individual contributors to the United Jewish Appeal in America” and, after creating the Wexner Heritage Foundation with Friedman, Wexner became UJA’s vice chairman.

While Wexner was serving in these capacities, he was also engaged in closed door meetings with the highest levels of Israeli leadership, not just about “philanthropy,” but also about his business interests. One specific meeting saw him meet with top Israeli government officials about “Chinese and Israeli interests” working with his company, The Limited, to establish factories in the occupied Golan Heights.

Notably, the Wexner Foundation has direct and controversial ties to at least one former Israeli head of state, Ehud Barak, who was intimately involved with Jeffrey Epstein and an alleged participant in his sex trafficking operation. As reported by https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/epstein-barak-and-the-wexner-foundation/Israel%20Today in 2019:

“[Barak’s ties to the Wexner Foundation] became an issue only after right-wing journalist Erel Segal called last October to investigate the $2.3 million ‘research’ grant Barak received from the Wexner Foundation, which has in turn for years been the beneficiary of Epstein’s financial contributions. According to Segal, the grant under question was given to Barak in 2004-2006, when he held no public position. Barak insists he has no authority to disclose details about this grant. Only the Wexner Foundation can, if they so choose (they choose silence).”

Developing Leaders

Set up simultaneously alongside the Wexner Foundation, Wexner’s Heritage Program (WHP) planned to connect American Jews with the ever expanding nation-state of Israel. The program was created so as to “expand the vision of Jewish volunteer leaders, deepen their Jewish knowledge and confidence and inspire them to exercise transformative leadership in the Jewish community.” The foundation defines the program as: “essentially a Jewish learning and leadership development program for volunteer leaders in North America.”

There have been, to date, around 2000 “leaders” who have taken part in the program. The WHP is a vehicle for standardizing a certain perspective on the history of Israel, as well as Judaic texts. The two year program is made up of 36 evening seminars, which occur bi-monthly for four-hour periods, as well as three short-term and out-of-town summer institutes hosted in either the US or Israel. Each of these summer institutes are between 5 and 7 days long and take place throughout the program.

As with other well-founded leadership programs, such as the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader program, the Wexner Heritage Program targets a very specific age group, aiming at professionals who are generally between the ages of 30 and 45 years-old. Some of the most important criteria required of program participants include showing a demonstrated commitment to Judaism, the Jewish community and/or Israel and a track record of leadership in Jewish communal life.

The Wexner Foundation website claims that:

“The 2,300 Alumni of the Wexner Heritage Program are top lay leaders at the local, national and international level. In the 35 cities where we have convened WHP cohorts, virtually every Jewish communal organization continues to be supported by our alumni. They become presidents or chairs of synagogues, Federations, JCC’s, Hillels, day schools, camps and more; they often are founders or chairs of allocations or annual campaigns. They serve on the boards of JFNA, 70 Faces Media, the Foundation for Jewish Camp, International Hillel, AIPAC and J Street; The Shalom Hartman Institute, Pardes, Hadar and every US rabbinical seminary; the Jewish Education Project, Prisma, the JDC and so many more.”

It is worth noting that, of those aforementioned groups, the Wexner Foundation (and especially the Wexner Heritage program) enjoys particularly close ties to AIPAC. For instance, Elliot Brandt, AIPAC’s national managing director, is an alumnus of the Wexner Heritage Program and, in a 2018 speech at that year’s AIPAC policy conference, Brandt noted that “most of the [AIPAC] National Board consists of Wexner Heritage Alumni, not to mention its regional chairs and some of its most committed donors as well.”

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Elliot Brandt and Alan Dershowitz at the 2017 AIPAC policy conference, Source: Screenshot

Wexner’s close ties to AIPAC take on a different tone when one considers, not only his close association with the Israeli intelligence-connected Jeffrey Epstein, but also the fact that AIPAC itself has long-standing and controversial ties to Israeli intelligence. For instance, AIPAC was at the center of an Israeli espionage scandal in the US in the mid-1980s as well as again in 2004, when a high-ranking Pentagon analyst was caught passing highly classified information over to Israel’s government via top officials at AIPAC.

Despite extensive evidence, particularly in the latter case, AIPAC itself avoided charges. As journalist Grant Smith noted at the time, “the Department of Justice’s chief prosecutor on the [AIPAC] espionage case, Paul McNulty, was suddenly and inexplicably promoted within the DOJ after he backed off on criminally indicting AIPAC as a corporation.” The charges against the specific AIPAC officials involved were also dropped.

In the years after the Wexner Heritage Program was launched, other similar efforts followed. In 1987, the Wexner Foundation announced it would begin channeling “$3-$4 million in grants to the first year of a program dedicated to the enhancement and improvement of professional leadership in the North American Jewish community.”

Per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Wexner said an Advisory Group drawn from among leading Jewish academicians and communal professionals recommended that attention be focused on three critical groups: rabbis, communal professionals and educators.” These efforts would result in the formal creation of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship in 1988. Chairmanship of the Wexner Fellowship Committee was given to Professor Henry Rosovsky.

Henry and Harvard

Henry Rosovsky was an economist at Harvard University. Like Wexner, and like many other of the Wexner Foundation’s associates, Rosovsky was born to Russian Jewish parents. He grew up speaking Russian, German, and French and, in 1940, Rosovsky emigrated to the United States of America with his parents.

During World War II, he served in Counterintelligence Corps of the US Army. He became a naturalized US citizen 9 years later. That same year, he received his B.A. degree from the College of William and Mary public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, followed by his PhD from Harvard in 1959.

Rosovsky taught overseas as a visiting professor in Japan at Hito Subashi and Tokyo Universities, and subsequently taught Japanese studies, economics and history at the University of California at Berkeley until 1965. He also taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, again as a visiting professor, as well as working as a consultant with the United States government, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and UNESCO.

Rosovsky settled down into his eventual career at Harvard in 1965 and brought with him the intention of making Jewish life at Harvard flourish. By 1978, Rosovsky had helped to establish the Center for Jewish Studies, which was led by Harry Wolfson, the first chairman of a Judaic studies center at any American college. Rosovsky was the first Jew to serve on the board of the Harvard Corporation. Rosovsky’s wife, Nitza Rosovsky, also had a presence at Harvard, and in 1986, during Harvard’s 350th anniversary celebrations, she wrote a piece entitled “The Jewish Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe,” which traces the Jewish history at the university dating back to the 1720s.

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Henry Rosovsky posing with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Source: Harvard Hillel

Rosovsky developed a close relationship with some key faculty members at Harvard, including future US Treasury Secretary and Harvard president Larry Summers. In 2017, Summers stated in a video tribute to Rosovsky the following: “Thirty-five years ago, I sat in your office as a young recruit to the Harvard faculty, and I was trembling with the majesty of it all,” he said. “Over time I became less intimidated and came to value your wisdom and your experience.”

Rosovsky became involved with the Wexner Foundation in 1987, when the Wexner Foundation announced the aforementioned initiative to recruit, support, and retain “the highest quality professional leadership” in the American Jewish community through grant-making to individuals and institutions. Those individual grants were awarded as Wexner Foundation fellowships and the Foundation appointed Rosovsky to serve as the chairman of the Wexner Fellowship Committee.

Rosovsky was prominent and well-connected by the time Wexner approached him, with his connections including Israeli politicians and heads of state like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin. By this point, Rosovsky was also being publicly honored for his many achievements. In 1987, after Wexner had launched several of his philanthropic endeavors, the American Academy of Achievement – a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in the country – had awardedRosovsky its “Golden Plate Award.”

One of Rosovsky’s most important links that were likely of interest to Wexner was his strong connection with Harvard Hillel. What is today referred to as the “Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel,” the Harvard Hillel is commonly described as a service organization that provides Jewish educational, cultural, religious, and social opportunities for students and faculty. Rosovsky had been a key player in paving the way for Hillel’s relocation from a simple home at the outskirts of campus to a location at the heart of Harvard life. Wexner’s subsequent involvement with Harvard Hillel would also mark Epstein’s own entry into what would become his controversial, and intimate, relationship with the prestigious university.

According to a 2003 article in the Harvard Crimson on Epstein’s donations to the University, Rosovsky was not only one of Epstein’s closest associates at Harvard, but was also Epstein’s “oldest friend of the bunch,” having been introduced to Rosovsky by Wexner around 1991. That is notably the same year that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell began their sexual blackmail/sex trafficking operation.

1991 was also the year that the New York Times reported that four donors, among them Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein, had pledged to raise $2 million for the construction of the new student center of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel. In that article, the Times lists Epstein as the “president of Wexner Investment Company.” The building was completed in 1994 and named Rosovsky Hall in Henry Rosovsky’s honor. Rosovsky Hall is a 19,500-square-foot building, which cost $3 million to complete and includes a garden courtyard, a student lounge, a dining hall, a library, offices, and multi-purpose rooms for worship and meetings.

After Epstein’s 2019 arrest, Hillel executive director Rabbi Jonah Steinberg claimed that Epstein had merely “facilitated” a gift that was actually donated by the Wexners and did not involve Epstein’s personal money. However, a now-absent plaque on the building, cited by the Harvard Crimson in 2003, named both Epstein and Wexner as donors responsible for funding the center’s construction.

Steinberg did note that Epstein did donate $50,000 to Hillel in 1991, the same year that the gift for the construction of Rosovsky Hall was also made. The following year, records from Harvard’s Office of Alumni Affairs and Development reveal that Epstein was courted as a potential donor by the University, with Harvard’s “most senior leaders” first officially meeting with Epstein to “seek his support.” It is unclear exactly what resulted from this meeting, as Epstein’s first official donation to Harvard was recorded in 1998, raising the possibility that support could have been given in other ways that did not necessarily involve direct donations to the University.

Indeed, when Harvard moved to reject donations from Epstein following his 2008 conviction, Epstein continued to donate indirectly to the University by directly sponsoring several professors as well as a student social club at Harvard. Epstein may have contributed in this fashion during this earlier period, especially given that he had already donated to Harvard’s Hillel by the time of the 1992 meeting.

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Jeffrey Epstein speaks with Larry Summers at a 2004 dinner he hosted for Harvard’s biggest names. Also pictured is Alan Dershowitz, among others. Source: Sott

It is worth noting that Epstein’s first “official” donation to Harvard in 1998 was the same year he was using his private plane, now best known to the public as the “Lolita Express,” to transport then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence “Larry” Summers. Summer’s then-boss, Treasury Secretary Richard Rubin, had previously facilitated Epstein’s first official visit to the Clinton White House in early 1993. Summers would become president of Harvard University shortly after the conclusion of the Clinton administration, in July 2001. During Summer’s tenure, Epstein’s access to Harvard’s campus and many of its most notable professors increased exponentially. While president of Harvard, Summers continued to fly on Epstein’s plane.

Developing Young Global Leaders

Though Epstein’s ties to Harvard have been scrutinized, Wexner also dramatically expanded his donations to Harvard during much of the same period. However, the role this may have played in facilitating Epstein’s own connections to the university have been largely glossed over by mainstream media reports on the matter.

Even before Wexner and Epstein donated to Harvard’s Hillel in 1991, Wexner’s philanthropic “development of leaders” had become entangled with Harvard University. In 1989, the year after the Wexner Graduate Fellowship was launched, the Wexner Israel Fellowship program was created to specifically “support up to 10 outstanding Israeli public officials earning their Mid-Career Master of Public Administration (MC/MPA) at Harvard Kennedy School.”

Per the Wexner Foundation’s website: “The goal of the Fellowship is to provide Israel’s next generation of public leaders with advanced leadership and public management training. More than 280 Israeli public officials have participated in the Israel Fellowship, including leaders who have gone on to become Directors General of government ministries, Generals and Commanders in the Israeli military, and top advisers to Prime Ministers.” As part of the program, participants “meet with senior U.S. government officials.” Wexner Israel Fellows also “commit to returning to Israel and remaining in the public sector for at least three years after completing the program.”

Similar claims can be found among Israeli media. For example, Israel 21c stated the following about the program in 2002:

“Several Wexner graduates have gone on to become Director-Generals of government ministries. Others have reached the highest echelons of the military, the health service, and the educational establishment. But ultimately, for Israel, the value of the program is not the titles of its participants, but in the quality of leadership exercised by these individuals at every level.”

That same article also notes that Wexner’s interest in having this program be hosted at Harvard’s Kennedy school “is the quality of the international exposure it permits. It attracts the highest caliber of public sector leadership from around the world and Israeli participants find themselves sitting next to ex-presidents and future prime ministers from every continent. It also creates a rare opportunity for high quality public relations, as future world leaders are exposed to some of the finest and most dedicated individuals Israel has to offer.”

Among the 10 alumni of the first class of Wexner Israel Fellows is Shay Avital, a prominent leadership figure in the Israeli military and who had first served under Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan Netanyahu. Other alumni include Avinoam Armoni, former special adviser to Teddy Kollek, as well as Israeli prime ministers; Moshe Lador, former Israeli state prosecutor; Arik Raz, former governor of Israel’s Misgav region; Uzi Vogelman, current justice on Israel’s Supreme Court; Eduardo Titelman Goren, a Chilean economist who has played a major role in managing Chile’s copper mining industry (the world’s largest); and Yossi Tamir, Director General of the JDC-Israel, “the leading global Jewish humanitarian organization.”

Another interesting alumnus from this first class was Amos Slyper, who was Deputy Director-General of the State Comptroller’s Office in Israel, making him responsible for the auditing of Israeli government ministries and offices. During Slyper’s tenure, the legal adviser to that office was Nurit Israeli, an alumnus of the second class of Wexner Israel Fellows.

As can be seen from just the first class of fellows, the Wexner Israel Fellow programs and its active alumni community have given Wexner considerable clout with prominent Israelis in major positions in government and industry. Years after this program was launched, it has since expanded to include the Wexner Senior Leaders program, which “leverages the training and scholarship of the Harvard Kennedy School to strengthen Israel’s public service leadership and spur innovative, collaborative projects across government departments and agencies.” It specifically seeks applicants from “senior level positions within Israel’s public service sector, including the civil service, local government, government agencies, and security forces.”

Thus, even before the 1991 donation by Wexner and Epstein, Wexner was actively bringing prominent Israelis, many with careers in Israel’s national security apparatus or in the public sector, to study at Harvard’s Kennedy school. In the years that followed, Wexner would become one of the guiding forces behind this particular school and would have even greater influence over the “development of leaders” at the institution.

Shortly before Larry Summers became Harvard’s president, Leslie Wexner, via the Wexner Foundation, funded the creation of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership (CPL). The CPL is described as “a premier training ground for emerging public leaders in the United States.”

The long-time director of CPL, who was likely chosen with direct input from Wexner, is David Gergen, an adviser to former presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Gergen has also had a parallel career in journalism and, in the late 1980s, “he was chief editor of U.S. News & World Report, working with publisher Mort Zuckerman.” Zuckerman was a close associate of Epstein and bought the New York Daily News after the death of its previous owner, Robert Maxwell. Gergen is also a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, where Epstein also had memberships.

Wexner’s contributions to Harvard’s CPL reached $19.6 million by 2006 and totaledmore than $42 million by 2012. Notably, during this period, Jeffrey Epstein – one of Wexner’s closest associates until they parted ways between 2007 and 2008 – was also making major connections and gaining unprecedented access to the school.

In 2006, when the Wexner’s announced an additional donation of $6.8 million to the CPL, Gergen was quoted by the Harvard Crimson as saying:

“It has been a great personal privilege to work with Les and Abigail Wexner over the past half-dozen years, at the University and beyond. They are both leaders in their own right – people of vision, imagination, and keen dedication to advancing the quality of public life. They have been wonderful partners.”

In 2014, Gergen participated in the Wexner Foundation’s 30th anniversary gala, hosting a session where he interviewed former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres at length.

Before Epstein’s second arrest, the Wexner-dominated CPL saw Epstein associates like Glenn Dubin and Leon Black creep into its top leadership bodies. For example, Dubin had become a member of CPL’s advisory council, which Leslie and Abigail Wexner co-chaired. Both Wexner and Dubin were pressured to remove themselves from that council after Epstein’s second arrest and subsequent death and departed in February 2020. At the time, the Harvard Crimson noted that the chief of staff to then-Harvard president Lawrence Bacow, Patricia Bellinger, had been added to the board of directors of Wexner’s L Brands (the current corporate name of The Limited).

Also at the time, Dubin had been named in court documents as one of the men Virginia Giuffre was forced to have sex with when she was under Epstein’s control, with another being Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz. In addition, as noted by the Crimson, a “former manager of the Dubin household Rinaldo Rizzo recount[ed] his encounter with a 15-year-old girl allegedly trafficked by Epstein who was brought to the Dubins’ house in 2005.” In 2010, Dubin had donated $5 million to the CPL to create his own fellowship aimed at “developing leaders,” called the Dubin Graduate Fellowships for Emerging Leaders.

In another example, Leon Black, of Apollo Global Management and whose “philanthropic” family foundation was also managed by Epstein for years, was on the CPL’s leadership council. Black, however, did not resign his post after the Epstein scandal became a national concern. However, after Wexner and Dubin had left their positions on the advisory council, Black’s connection to Epstein resulted in considerable media scrutiny as well as an “internal investigation” by Apollo. As of 2022, Black is no longer listed on the CPL’s website as a member of its leadership council.

In 2006, plans were made for the Wexner-funded CPL to team up with the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) program. The World Economic Forum, which describes itself as the pre-eminent facilitator of “public-private partnerships” on a global scale, originally created what would become YGL in 1992 under the name the Global Leaders of Tomorrow. It was rebranded as the YGL program in 2004.

In recent years, the Forum and its YGL program have become infamous in some circles, specifically after a clip of the Forum’s chairman Klaus Schwab went viral. In that clip, Schwab states the following of the YGL program:

“I have to say then I mention names like Mrs Merkel, even Vladimir Putin and so on they all have been Young Global Leaders of The World Economic Forum. But what we are really proud of now with the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on, is that we penetrate the cabinets… It is true in Argentina and it is true in France now…”

Notably, that clip comes from a 2017 discussion between Klaus Schwab and the CLP’s David Gergen that took place at the Harvard Kennedy school. In the introduction to that discussion, the close ties between the Harvard Kennedy school and the World Economic Forum are highlighted and it is also mentioned that YGL participants are also present and attending the Harvard Kennedy school for an executive session. Gergen, in addition to his many roles and appointments, is also formerly a board member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which Klaus Schwab co-founded with his wife in 1998, and is also an agenda contributor to the World Economic Forum.



The CPL began hosting an Executive Session for Young Global Leader participants in order to allow “the Young Global Leaders a much greater opportunity to form personal connections and bonds that will encourage opportunities for the leaders to working together, across multiple sectors, to solve international issues and problems in the future.”

These executive sessions were “designed and hosted by the Kennedy School of Government” and a significant amount of the funds raised were connected to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). In 2007, Epstein’s defense lawyers claimed that Epstein had played a major role in developing the CGI, writing to federal prosecutors that “Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project ‘bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges’.”

At the time, the executive director of the CPL, working under David Gergen, was Betsy Meyers, a former senior adviser to president Clinton, specifically on women’s issues. Meyers also played a “critical role in Clinton’s re-election effort in 1996.” The corruption surrounding Clinton’s re-election campaign that year and Epstein’s own connections to that corruption are a key focus of my upcoming book.

Klaus Schwab’s now infamous “penetrate the cabinets” quote may offer insight as to Leslie Wexner’s own interest over the decades in “developing leaders” in American Jewish communities, in Israel and beyond. With nearly 40 years focused specifically on training men and women of influence in American Jewish society – as well as in Israel’s government and private sector – ideas and policies that benefit Wexner both personally and professionally have been instilled into generations of leaders and influencers, who then go on to influence many others. In the specific case of the Wexner Israel fellows, Wexner has been able to “penetrate” key posts in Israel’s government, and even its national security/intelligence apparatus, with people he has funded and who have participated in courses that were shaped by, and reflect, Wexner’s views.

Over the past two decades, Wexner’s foray into becoming one of the main donors of the Harvard Kennedy school allows for much the same to occur, but this time for leaders who operate and influence those far outside of the boundaries of the global Jewish community.

Wexner’s exact reasons for establishing and maintaining this legitimate yet massive influence operation, which paralleled Epstein’s own blackmail-based influence operation, have never been made explicit.

Yet, in speculating as to why he would want to mold the powerful and soon-to-be powerful, it is worth considering Wexner’s lesser known connections, including to organized crime and to Jeffrey Epstein.

Whitney Webb has been a professional writer, researcher and journalist since 2016. She has written for several websites and, from 2017 to 2020, was a staff writer and senior investigative reporter for Mint Press News. She is contributing editor of Unlimited Hangout and author of the book One Nation Under Blackmail.

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First Friends: How “Italy’s Donald Trump” Introduced Naomi Campbell to Jeffrey Epstein
by Whitney Webb
July 21, 2025
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/07/in ... nds-part1/

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With the Trump administration having mismanaged the release of new information about the Jeffrey Epstein case, Unlimited Hangout investigates some important yet largely unknown players in the Epstein network whose close ties to Donald Trump may explain the government’s reticence to “release [all] the files.” In this first installment of the series, the ties of “Italy’s Donald Trump” Flavio Briatore and his former fianceé supermodel Naomi Campbell to Epstein and his broader network are explored in detail.

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In recent weeks the handling (or rather mishandling) of the Trump administration’s release of the “Epstein files” has splintered his base while also reviving public interest in the acts and history of Jeffrey Epstein. Claims have been made from figures like Elon Musk, a former ally turned critic after a highly publicized falling out, that Donald Trump himself is somehow implicated in the Epstein files – a term generally referring to documents the U.S. government has about the Epstein case that it has yet to publicly release. Meanwhile, some allies of Trump in politics and media have come to the president’s defense while others remain puzzled about the administration’s actions due to campaign promises of releasing these documents. Democrats in Congress, who have largely avoided discussing the Epstein case much at all in recent years, seem to smell blood in the water and are now publicly lobbying for the documents’ release.

Trump, as a political phenomenon, has long been able to brush off the most scandalous of leaks and recordings of lewd behavior that have emerged since he burst onto, and forever changed, the U.S. political scene. However, the fallout from the administration’s recent handling of Epstein-related information seems to have dented Trump’s reputation as “Teflon Don.” Given the prominent role the Epstein case played in Trump’s 2024 campaign and the administration’s recent communications, it is worth examining in greater detail some of the relatively unknown connections that could have helped shape what many are now calling a cover-up.

In this new series from Unlimited Hangout entitled “First Friends,” we will examine close friends and associates of the current president who also boast considerable connections to Jeffrey Epstein and/or his best known accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, including one who currently serves in an important post in the Trump administration. While some have posited that Trump himself may be significantly implicated in the Epstein scandal – a possibility worth considering – this series aims to show that these long-time Trump pals could also be part of the motivation for the administration’s dramatic aboutface on the release of most Epstein documents.

In the first installment of this series, Unlimited Hangout examines the Italian businessman Flavio Briatore, sometimes referred to in the press as “Italy’s Donald Trump” because of his long-running friendship with the current president, and how his rise to prominence and wealth was fueled by a series of seedy associations to the same network of organized crime and intelligence operatives that also aided the rise of Epstein. As detailed in the two-volume book One Nation Under Blackmail, this network is ultimately controlled by powerful financial interests and unaccountable mob-linked oligarchs who have made powerful nation states, including the U.S., their play thing. This article will also detail how Briatore, along with Donald Trump and others, were once accused by Epstein’s butler Alfredo Rodriguez of being “material witnesses” to Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes. Rodriguez died in 2015 shortly after serving time in prison in relation to his failed efforts to sell the now infamous “black book” of Jeffrey Epstein.

However, first, this article will examine the supermodel Naomi Campbell, who was introduced to Epstein by Briatore – her one-time fianceé and subsequently “her mentor.” Campbell later flew on Epstein’s plane and, shortly after ending her relationship with Briatore, became romantically involved with the rapper Diddy, who would remain her close friend years after their romantic flame went out. Diddy’s own sex trafficking scandal and trial has been a focus on media attention for much of the past several months and Campbell has been accused of involvement in Diddy’s alleged criminal activity.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges when looking at Briatore’s and Campbell’s connections again underscores how the Epstein scandal is, in many ways, “too big to fail” as it risks exposing a nefarious yet wide-reaching power structure that could lose its grip if widely exposed.

The Models and Moguls of the “Black Book”

Naomi Campbell, born in Britain to parents of Jamaican origin, began her modeling career in the mid-1980s at age 15. Prior to that she appeared in music videos for Bob Marley and Culture Club and in the Pink Floyd film The Wall. She enjoyed commercial success a few years later, in the late 1980s, and cemented her standing as one of the world’s most iconic supermodels during the 1990s. She first modeled for the Leslie Wexner-owned Victoria’s Secret in 1996, a year after the lingerie brand began its once very popular televised fashion shows. Those shows, until they were suspended in the wake of the Epstein scandal in 2019, attracted “more viewers than all other fashion shows combined” and were run by the Chief Marketing Officer of L Brands (Victoria’s Secret’s parent company) Ed Razek. Razek, who was later accused of inappropriate behavior toward company models, along with some of the brand’s top modeling talent – including Campbell – can be found in the now infamous contact book of Leslie Wexner’s long-time fixer and now deceased sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

Campbell, for much of her early career, was represented by Elite Model Management. Elite had been founded by John Casablancas who was open about his sexual preference for “child women” and he had several affairs and relationships with 16 and 17 year olds. In a now suppressed BBC documentary from 1999, Elite agents were depicted “boasting of sex and drug exploits with young recruits.” Elite came under scrutiny a few years ago due to Donald Trump’s political fame, as his daughter Ivanka began modeling for Elite at age 15, wearing what the New York Times described at the time as “sexy outfits,” including a “see-through white dress,” while “still chubby in the cheeks with baby fat.”

Campbell was 17 when she began working for Elite, after Elite bought out the agency that had first signed her in 1987. Elite and Campbell parted ways in 1993, with Casablancas accusing her of being “crazy, irrational and uncontrollable” and mistreating staff. Campbell claimed that she had quit and that, contrary to Casablancas’ claims, she hadn’t been fired. Campbell has been accused of a series of assaults and for mistreating staff on several occasions over the past three decades. As noted above, a few years later, she became a prominent fixture at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, appearing at the annual events from 1996 though 2005.

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Naomi Campbell at the Victoria’s Secret televised fashion show in 1996 – Source

Jeffrey Epstein attempted but ultimately failed to acquire Elite’s American branch in the early 2000s. However, another close associate of Epstein’s, model turned businesswoman Nicole Junkermann, was also managed by Elite in 1995 and this may be how she first became acquainted with Epstein some time between the late 1990s and the early 2000s. As will be noted later, this is also roughly the same time frame in which Campbell claims to have first met Epstein. Junkermann, in 2002, allegedly assisted Epstein in sexually blackmailing two U.S. Senators (the identities of which still remain unknown) at a Wexner-owned residence in the United Kingdom, suggesting that some of the relationships Epstein cultivated with certain models was related to sexual blackmail efforts.

Epstein began to focus heavily on the modeling industry in 1995, several years after he teamed up with Wexner. Some evidence, however, suggests that Epstein had become very involved with recruiting models for Victoria’s Secret (or at least claiming to do so) as early as 1993. However, 1995 remains a significant year for Epstein in the modeling industry. That year, Epstein first teamed up with Jean Luc Brunel, a controversial model agency mogul from France who – much like Epstein – died suspiciously in prison in 2022 while awaiting charges related to the Epstein scandal.

Brunel, who is believed to have played a major role in Epstein’s sex trafficking enterprise, had brought Epstein into close connection with Faith Kates of Next models, “one of the most respected agencies in the industry,” who was a former business partner of Brunel’s. Epstein continued to have a close relationship with Kates and Next well after Brunel and Kates severed their business arrangement in 1996. As previously mentioned, 1995 was also the year that Victoria’s Secret began its fabulously successful annual fashion show and it was also the time that Epstein successfully began to portray himself as either being “in charge of Victoria’s Secret” or sometimes as one of the brand’s most prominent modeling scouts. As noted in the book One Nation Under Blackmail Vol. 2, Epstein used his connections to the modeling industry, particularly his ties to Victoria’s Secret, as a lure to so many aspiring models it was later characterized in media reports as “an Epstein-Victoria’s Secret pimp pipeline.”

Some in the industry even referred to Epstein as “one of the most important people in modeling” in the late 1990s. His connection with the modeling world persisted up until his first arrest in 2007, particularly his ties with Jean Luc Brunel. With Brunel, an apartment complex owned by a company run by Epstein’s brother Mark was said to have housed underage and just-of-age girls mainly from Eastern Europe and South America. Some (and likely many) of the girls and young women had their travel documents confiscated by Epstein associates and were coerced into having sex with powerful men. One of the models that flew on Epstein’s plane and traveled to his island, Ruslana Korshunova – a model for Vera Wang, DKNY and others – jumped to her death from her ninth floor apartment roughly two years after her trip with Epstein. The reason for Korshunova’s suicide remains unknown.

In addition, Epstein’s black book of contacts confirms that he certainly did have influence within the modeling industry. Aside from his aforementioned ties to Faith Kates and Brunel, his black book includes listings for Tom Ford, then the creative director of Gucci, as well as Ford’s long-time partner Richard Buckley, a “titan of the fashion media world.” In addition, famous models like Naomi Campbell, Janice Dickinson and Chis Royer also appear in the black book. Campbell is not only listed in Epstein’s black book and also owes the Epstein-connected Victoria’s Secret much for their commercial success, she is also intimately connected to one of the few “untouchable” figures around Epstein that was once flagged by Epstein’s own butler of having considerable knowledge of or involvement in his criminal enterprise. His name? Flavio Briatore.

Epstein’s black book of contacts, arguably now one of the most infamous contact books in the world, contains many names, but only a few names are circled. The book, along with the annotations such as the circling of certain names, was originally produced by Epstein’s butler Alfredo Rodriguez, who attempted to sell the book to Epstein victim lawyer Brad Edwards for a significant sum. Rodriguez made several notes in the book that he said would be important to solving the case, with most of the circled names – unless otherwise noted by Rodriguez’s annotations – referring to alleged co-conspirators and “material witnesses” of Epstein’s sex crimes. Edwards, who works alongside career U.S. intelligence mop-up man and lawyer Stanley Pottinger (who, like Edwards, is also a prominent Epstein victim lawyer), reported Rodriguez to the FBI. The FBI then set up a sting operation to obtain the book from Rodriguez, who was later charged by the government with bribery and obstruction of justice. Rodriguez then went to prison and died in 2015, the same year the black book was published by journalist Nick Bryant and Gawker. Bryant told Vanity Fair in 2019 that he gained access to the black book around 2012 after the FBI had obtained it and ultimately published with Gawker after many prominent media outlets declined to publish his articles about the book and the Epstein case in general.

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The circled, unredacted entries for Donald Trump and Flavio Briatore in Epstein’s “black book”

In the black book, Rodriguez had circled Briatore’s name, along with the names of Leslie and Abigail Wexner, Jean Luc Brunel, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen (an Epstein assistant and recruiter protected by the so-called “sweetheart deal”), Peter Soros (nephew of the infamous financier George Soros), Glenn and Eva Dubin (close friends of Epstein with the latter also being his ex-girlfriend), Ehud Barak (former Israeli Prime Minister and former head of Israeli military intelligence), Bill Richardson (former Democratic Governor of New Mexico named by prominent Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre), Alan Dershowitz (Epstein’s friend and former defense lawyer) and current U.S. president Donald Trump. In the case of Trump as well as the other circled names, it is unknown why specifically Rodriguez singled them out – e.g. were some of the names once “clients” of Epstein’s sex ring? Which were “material witnesses,” enablers or direct accomplices?

Ultimately, aside from Maxwell, Brunel and Epstein himself (one alive in prison and the other two found dead under unusual circumstances while in prison awaiting trial), none of the other circled names have been meaningfully investigated or pursued by law enforcement, Flavio Briatore included.

The Life and (Alleged) Crimes of Flavio Briatore

Flavio Briatore was born in Verzuolo, Italy and, after a failed restaurant venture, moved to the city of Cuneo. There, he became the assistant to local financier Attilio Dutto. Dutto was the owner of the Paramatti Vernici paint company, whose previous owner – Sicilian banker Michele Sindona – had laundered proceeds from heroin sales for the Gambino crime family. Sindona, in addition to his extensive mob ties, was also an adviser to the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank (officially known as the Institute for the Works of Religion) and a member of the infamous Freemason lodge “P2.” P2, also known as Propaganda Due, spawned a massive political scandal in Italy, as its members included mobsters, powerful businessmen, well-connected bankers and important politicians — many who were allegedly tied to the CIA’s Operation Gladio. P2 notably overlapped with Permindex-CMC, which Jim Garrison (and several researchers since) implicated in the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy.

During the early 1990s, another member of P2, former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, would become one of Flavio Briatore’s longest-standing and closest friends. Berlusconi’s long-time holding company, Fininvest, is alleged to have made annual payments of 200 million lira to the Silician mafia for an unspecified period after the company was founded in 1975. He was later accused by multiple parties of continuing involvement with organized crime, often in the pursuit of business (and later political) favors, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. Berlusconi, the subject of numerous investigations for corruption, is also known for reportedly having an appetite for underage girls, with his conviction for hiring an underage “prostitute” while Prime Minister of Italy and using his authority to attempt to conceal the crime. His wife left him due to his “surround[ing] himself with minors.”

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Flavio Briatore (left) with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (right) in an undated photo – Source

The later blossoming of the Berluscioni-Briatore relationship is suggestive that Briatore’s early connection to Dutto helped connect him into a world where the mafia and other powerful interests mixed in the shadows. Author Paul Williams, who wrote the book on the infamous Operation Gladio, wrote that Dutto’s predecessor Michele Sindona had been a “lynchpin” between organized crime networks (particularly those involving the National Crime Syndicate), the CIA and the Vatican, which eventually resulted “in the toppling of governments, wholesale slaughter and financial devastation” in post-war Europe. Several members of P2 were implicated in the conspiracy, including employees and members of the Agnelli family. The Agnellis, years later, would later become financially entangled with Jeffrey Epstein.

Sindona was also behind one of the biggest bank collapses in American history, Franklin National Bank. Sindona’s entry into the bank had been facilitated by Laurence Tisch, who sold a 20% percent stake to the bank to Sindona. Tisch would later become an important, founding member of the so-called “Mega Group” that was founded in 1991 by Leslie Wexner and Charles Bronfman. Most of its known members share historical and more current ties to these same organized crime networks as well as the broader network that enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s illegal acts.

Tellingly, Sindona’s successor at Paramatti, Attilio Dutto, was murdered just like his predecessor. While Sindona had died after drinking a cyanide-laced coffee in prison despite being under 24 hour police surveillance, Dutto died in a car bomb explosion in 1979 – a murder which still remains unsolved. Dutto’s then assistant, Flavio Briatore, immediately disappeared from Cuneo following Dutto’s death. At least one report has claimed that Briatore was charged with wrong-doing after Paramatti collapsed following Dutto’s death, though it appears Briatore never went to trial for anything related to Paramatti.

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Michele Sindona during criminal proceedings in 1984 – Source

After Dutto’s murder, Briatore later reappeared in Milan, working for Finanziaria Generale Italia at the Milan stock exchange. While there, he became connected to the aristocratic Caproni dynasty, who had built their fortunes by dominating Italy’s aeronautical industry for many decades. In particular, Briatore became close to Count Achille Caproni di Taliedo, who was accused and tried for financial crimes against banks and other companies in the early 1980s via a holding company he controlled, Compagnia Generale Industriale (CGI). Notably, during this period, Caproni gave control over major aspects of that holding company to Flavio Briatore. However, Briatore was not charged for any potential role he may have played in CGI’s illicit activities or its 1983 bankruptcy.

In addition to the Capronis, Briatore also became acquainted with Luciano Benetton, the founder of United Colors of Benetton clothing company, during this period. That relationship would later prove critical to Briatore’s commercial success. However, not long after getting close to Benetton, Briatore was charged with several counts of fraud resulting from his ties to illegal rackets at Milan gambling dens. Those rackets were largely orchestrated and operated by successors to the Milan organized crime boss Francis Turatello. Evidence used against Briatore included a page from his personal agenda that listed a New York telephone number under the name “Genovese.” According to journalist Gianni Barbacetto, the number was registered to the G&G Concrete Corporation controlled by John Gambino, a well-known U.S. organized crime figure. Briatore evaded his prison sentence by becoming a fugitive, landing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, later a favorite haunt of a man who would soon become Briatore’s friend – Jeffrey Epstein. Notably, Epstein’s main patron and another circled name in his black book, Leslie Wexner, also had alleged ties to the Genovese crime family, according to heavily suppressed documents originally authored by Ohio law enforcement. Those documents resulted from the police investigation into the “mob style murder” of Wexner’s lawyer Arthur Shapiro, who was due to testify to the IRS shortly after he was killed. Shortly thereafter, Wexner hired Jeffery Epstein to sort out his “tangled” finances.

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From left to right: Luciano Benetton, Alessandro Benetton, Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone (who, like Flavio, is in Epstein’s “black book”) – Source

Around the time Briatore was charged and fled Italy for the USVI, he was chosen by Luciano Benetton to become “the Benetton Group’s principal representative in the United States.” During his time running Benetton’s North American operations throughout most of the 1980s, Briatore “ferried backwards and forwards between New York and the Virgin Islands tax haven,” becoming a “flamboyant member of the Italian-American business circles.” His forays into New York saw him become a partner at the most famous of the Regine’s Disco nightclubs. Regine, born Rochelle Zylberberg, was a European Holocaust survivor whose nightclub empire was originally bankrolled by Guy and Edmond de Rothschild of the infamous banking dynasty and they remained long-time patrons and supporters of her enterprise for decades. Presumably, Briatore met Epstein, as well as his friend Donald Trump, during this period.

Also during this same period, Briatore was tangentially involved in another scandal, one that involved an alleged effort to sell atomic bombs to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. This attempt to help make Libya a nuclear power had notably involved an infamous Saudi family tied to the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) scandal and money laundering for drug cartels. The story, never fully investigated, goes something like this: a significant group of shares in the Italian insurance giant Assicurazioni Generali (aka the Generali Group) were passed around as part of a deal that benefited a small network of figures tied to Libya and/or Saudi Arabia with links to arms smuggling and money laundering. This particular group of shares “mysteriously left Italy” before returning to the country as collateral for “opaque international transactions” involving Libya, the Italian state oil company ENI and the smuggling of American-made weapons that traveled a serpentine route to ultimately end up in Libya despite the U.S. embargo.

The main figures involved in this memory-holed scandal included Anthony Tannoury (sometimes spelled Tannouri), a French-Lebanese arms dealer with close ties to Libya; Mazed Pharaon, a wealthy sheikh and the brother of the infamous BCCI investor and money launderer for drug cartels, Saudi “financier” Ghaith Pharaon; and Florio Fiorini, former manager of the Italian oil company ENI who had made significant, past deals with Libyan oil companies. A company that Fiorini controlled, Sasea, ultimately bought the shares, which were controlled by Tannoury, Pharaon and two of their associates. Tannoury and Pharaon had previously attempted to collaborate on a covert effort to sell nuclear weapons components to Libya by route of Venezuela. The effort was unsuccessful (some reports paint the effort as a scam orchestrated by Tannoury). Tannoury and Pharaon later claimed to have lost the $33 million that they had invested in the failed venture. As it relates to Briatore, a company he briefly controlled called Finclaus was one of the entities in this close-knit network that held onto the Tannoury-Pharaon-Fiorini group of shares in the Generali Group as it “toured the world.” Notably, the Benetton family, which has long-standing and deep ties to Briatore, are also long-standing shareholders of the Generali Group.

Nearly a decade after this scandal was covered up, Briatore’s London residence was bombed in 1993, allegedly by the IRA. Briatore survived the bombing and his house suffered minor damages. Notably, the IRA faction said to have been responsible had reportedly been supplied bombs and weapons by Libya. While it’s unclear why the Irish separatist militant group would choose to bomb Briatore’s home, his past ties to the figures involved with arms smuggling by way of Libya may provide one clue.

Another possibility could be that it wasn’t actually the IRA and another group angry at Briatore was responsible. The year before the bombing, there was a phone call intercepted by Italian officials the year prior between Briatore and Felice Cultrera, a Sicilian businessman. During the call, Briatore had asked about an effort by a mob-connected figure to sell engines to the Briatore-run F1 racing team owned by the Benettons (more on that shortly). The call was used as evidence as part of a large investigation targeting organized crime by the Italian state and it’s possible that interests angered by the investigation could have orchestrated the bombing to intimidate Briatore. Briatore notably became a major figure in the sale of engines to F1 racers and it’s unclear if his engine supply chain was ever connected to the organized crime networks that had approached him, as laid out in his intercepted call with Cultrera.

There is also other evidence that, in addition to the above, suggests Briatore had more than coincidental ties to the worlds of organized crime, arms deals and money laundering. In 2015, it was reported that Briatore held 38 accounts totalling $73 million in the private Swiss branch of HSBC, a bank later found to have enabled the activities of drug dealers, arms dealers, money launderers and terrorists. Reports suggest that Briatore’s accounts at the bank were closed in 2007, the year when the bank also “weeded out” clients who did not meet new standards meant to prevent the bank from enabling crime. Notably, the HSBC branch in question, where Briatore banked, was created after HSBC acquired some of the holdings of Edmond Safra and then took Safra’s “wealthy international clients” and moved their accounts to the new branch. It is unknown if Briatore was among these clients that had originally banked with Safra and Safra-controlled institutions, but – given Safra’s connections and Briatore’s own – it is plausible.

Safra was an international banker whose banking institutions were dogged by controversy, in large part due to scandals involving money laundering and organized crime. This includes those that later formed the basis of HSBC’s private Swiss branch where Briatore banked. Safra was a close associate and friend of Robert Maxwell – father of Ghislaine Maxwell and Israeli intelligence asset – and also appears in Epstein’s black book, though his last name is misspelled as “Saffra.” Safra had considerable ties to Russian organized crime, the state of Israel and the secret society of B’nai B’rith, where he served on the board of overseers alongside Edgar Bronfman and Leslie Wexner’s business mentor Max Fisher. Safra’s banks also had significant connections to the networks that operated the intelligence and crime-linked bank BCCI.

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Edmond Safra (left), sometimes called the “Rockefeller of Geneva,” with David Rockefeller (right), then-head of Chase Manhattan bank, in 1977 – Source

While weaving himself even deeper into organized crime networks spanning both the Old and New World, Briatore also became even more intertwined with Luciano Benetton. The Benetton family had formally entered the world of Formula One (F1) racing in 1985, acquiring an underperforming team it re-named Benetton Formula Ltd. Briatore was made commercial director of the team by Luciano Benetton and later became its managing director. Briatore is credited with making the team competitive and for its greatest successes, which occurred during the mid-1990s thanks to driver Michael Schumacher, who Briatore had recruited to join the Benetton team and who delivered two back-to-back championships. Schumacher left Benetton to join Ferrari in 1996 and Briatore was let go from the Benetton businesses in 1997. After the Benetton team was sold to Renault in 2000, Briatore rejoined it as executive director. His girlfriend at the time, Naomi Campbell, credits herself with setting up “an intervention dinner” with top F1 figures to persuade Briatore to return to the sport.

Briatore’s success at Formula One was later marred by scandal. A race fixing scandal in 2008 that favored Briatore’s then-star driver Fernando Alonso at the Singapore Grand Prix resulted in Briatore’s supposed lifetime ban from the sport. The investigation into scandal, known as “Crashgate,” found Briatore to have been complicit in the conspiracy, despite his denials. However, Briatore was later allowed back into the sport, with the Alpine team announcing in 2024 that Briatore was joining as an executive advisor. Meanwhile, the 2008 “Crashgate” scandal may have repeated itself shortly after Briatore’s return. Last year, a whistleblower claimed that F1 races were again rigged last year to benefit Fernando Alonso. Briatore is still said to be Alonso’s long-time agent.

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Flavio Briatore (left) and Michael Schumacher (right) in 1995 – Source

In addition to Flavio Briatore, numerous other important figures from F1 racing appear in Epstein’s book of contacts, including Bernie Ecclestone (who has long been very close to Briatore), Lawrence Stroll (who also has important ties to the fashion industry), and former star drivers Eddie Irvine and Jacques Villeneuve. Ecclestone and Briatore partnered in 2007 to take over the Queen Park Rangers football team, with Briatore leaving a few years later. The entry for Stroll, who made most of his fortune thanks to investments in fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors, lists 17 phone numbers and two addresses, while the entry for Briatore lists – by comparison – 8 phone numbers and two addresses. Epstein’s former employee and alleged co-conspirator (who remains protected from prosecution by the “sweetheart deal”), Sarah Kellen, has ties to the U.S.’ F1 equivalent NASCAR via her husband Brian Vickers. Vickers notably filed for divorce earlier this year. It is worth mentioning that some F1 events have been accused of serving as “hubs” for human trafficking and that “young girls” in particular have been targeted.

By the mid-1990s, F1 and the Benettons had made Briatore rich and spurred his own ostentatious franchises focused on the rich and famous after being branded an “international playboy” (a phrase also once used to describe Jeffrey Epstein). For instance, in 1998, he opened the “Billionaire” nightclub brand, with its first location in Sardinia with others to follow. He later developed a conglomerate called Billionaire Life, a holding company for restaurants, luxury resorts and a haute couture fashion line. “With Billionaire, I didn’t just create a company,” Briatore later told Entrepreneur, “I created a lifestyle.” Thanks to Billionaire’s success, Briatore is now increasingly referred to in the press as a “hospitality mogul.”

Though Briatore’s Billionaire brand has holdings spread throughout the world, spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa, his favorite place to build Billionaire brand businesses is now in Dubai. Briatore has developed several successful business ventures in the UAE as well as in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh. Another developer who has long made major hospitality investments in the Persian Gulf, with more allegedly on the way, is Briatore’s close friend, U.S. president Donald Trump.

The Briatore-Trump Relationship

Briatore and Donald Trump first met during the late 1980s, though Briatore has declined to give an exact date. Briatore’s introduction to Trump was allegedly related to the fact that the two men – at the time – were trying “to start their careers after the stock market crash with the ‘Black Monday’ in 1987,” according to an interview Briatore gave on the Beyond the Grid podcast that was later the subject of a report by Motorsport. Per Motorsport, “It is not surprising that their paths crossed. The scene of playboys who wanted to get rich quickly was manageable even in New York at the time. You knew each other.” The two other New York-based “playboys” closest to Trump during this time were Jeffrey Epstein and Tom Barrack of Colony Capital, who still maintains close ties to Trump (now serving as U.S. ambassador to Turkey) and also to Briatore. At the time, Epstein was just beginning to work for Leslie Wexner and had spent much of the early to mid-1980s “hiding and finding stolen money” for powerful people. It seems likely that Briatore first met Epstein either via Trump (who broke ties with Epstein decades later over their competing efforts to purchase a Florida mansion) or Barrack, who is also listed in Epstein’s black book. However, unlike the listings for Briatore and Trump in that book, Barrack’s name was not circled by Epstein’s former butler Alfredo Rodriguez. Tellingly, Briatore has – to this date – never been asked about his Epstein relationship despite granting numerous interviews since Epstein’s 2019 arrest and death, making it difficult to know who first introduced them and the extent of their relationship.

Briatore stated that he grew even closer to Trump after officiating a meeting between the real estate mogul and Briatore’s then-boss Luciano Benetton. The meeting, which occurred some time between 1991 and 1992, occurred at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the site of Victoria’s Secret annual fashion shows, and whose suites were once used by a group of organized crime-linked figures to sexually blackmail powerful figures in government. Trump’s mentor and lawyer Roy Cohn, an organized crime associate, had been intimately involved in those blackmail efforts and Trump, after he bought the Plaza, was accused of hosting parties in Plaza hotel suites “where young women and girls were introduced to older, richer men” in which the women were allegedly exploited and illegal drugs were widely available. Around this time, Trump had also taken a controlling interest in Resorts International, an infamous mob-linked CIA front company that had formerly been known as the Mary Carter Paint company. Briatore claims to have introduced Benetton to Trump “because I was sure it was possible to do something together.” It is unclear what, if any, agreement Benetton and Trump may have reached during or after the meeting.

However, Briatore claimed that, after arranging this meeting, Trump offered him a job. Briatore elaborated that he had nearly turned down an offer from Benetton to deepen his involvement in the family’s F1 racing team because of the offer from Trump. “I wanted to go back to New York. I had an offer from Donald Trump to work for him in America,” Briatore told Tom Clarkson in 2020. In that same interview, Briatore also specified that the offer had been related to “the commercial side of his [Trump’s] new casino in Atlantic City.” Notably, Trump’s decision to acquire control over the mob and intelligence-linked Resorts International had largely been motivated by his efforts to develop Resort’s casino interests in Atlantic City, namely the Taj Mahal, which officially opened in 1990. A few years later, Trump ran into major financial trouble and was bailed out by Rothschild banking interests.



Though the two never ended up directly working together on any casino-related venture, they eventually did collaborate on “The Apprentice,” with Briatore starring in the series’ Italian language version as Trump’s counterpart. In the 2020 interview with Tom Clarkson, Briatore said that “I have always had a good relationship with him [Trump] […] When he decided to broadcast ‘The Apprentice’ in Italy, he wanted me for it. He said: ‘I want Flavio Briatore.’” Briatore was also chosen to star in the recent reboot of the Italian “The Apprentice” and has also claimed that Trump personally asked him in 2024 to become the series’ representative in Europe. Briatore turned down the offer, citing his commitment to his recent return to F1 racing, and added that Trump, at the time, had also requested Briatore visit him in Florida.

Briatore has also been very supportive of Trump’s political career, and has characterized Trump as a political moderate. During the 2016 election, Briatore had heralded his long-time friend as an “unparalleled talent” that regular Americans can identify with more easily than career politicians. Briatore also has praised Trump’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, in particular the “Going Direct” fiscal policy pursued by former Treasury Secretary under Trump, Steve Mnuchin, with the input of Trump’s former money manager Larry Fink.

In 2019, Briatore attempted to follow Trump’s trajectory from businessman to politician and launched his own political movement in Italy called Movimento del Fare. The move immediately drew comparisons to Trump, which “honored” Briatore. Briatore’s political party initially portrayed itself as a group of “successful businessmen and professional[s] that, together with theirs ideas and visions, will help the country recover, create jobs and attract investments.” However, it appears to have garnered little success and Briatore has since remained more focused on his growing hospitality empire. With respect to the 2024 U.S. election, Briatore reiterated his support for his friend’s bid to return to the White House.

Naomi Campbell – The Woman Who Connects Epstein and Diddy

Regardless of exactly how Briatore and Epstein met and who introduced them, the two knew each other well before 2001, when Briatore introduced his then-fiancé, supermodel Naomi Campbell, to Epstein. However, given her prominent roles in Victoria’s Secret fashion shows, a prior meeting is possible. Indeed, Campbell herself later said that “He [Epstein] was always front and centre at Victoria’s Secret shows.” When interviewed after Epstein’s arrest in mid-2019, Campbell denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and said she stood “with the victims.”

Photos from the occasion where Campbell claims to have first met Epstein – her 31st birthday party hosted on Briatore’s yacht – shows Campbell and Epstein associates in the same photograph. Those photographs are now rather infamous as they also show Epstein’s most prominent accuser, an underage Virginia Roberts (later Virginia Giuffre after her marriage), attending the party and following Epstein’s most notorious accomplice – Ghislaine Maxwell – around the event. Giuffre died earlier this year in April. There are other pictures of Campbell and Maxwell partying together in the early 2000s at subsequent events, suggesting the two became rather chummy after their initial meeting. Giuffre later alleged that Campbell and Maxwell had been “BFF,” i.e. best friends.

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A compilation of photos produced by the Daily Mail which show images of Naomi Campbell, Flavio Briatore, Ghislaine Maxwell and a then-underage Virginia Roberts at Naomi Campbell’s 31st birthday party. Also included is a picture (left) of Virginia Roberts with Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew during what was apparently the same trip, as she is wearing the same outfit she was wearing at Campbell’s event – Source

In addition, Campbell also flew on Epstein’s private jet five times after she met him, with those flights taking place between 2001 and 2003. One of the flights saw her travel with former president Bill Clinton. Two of the flights originated from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Briatore had major long-standing connections and where Epstein’s infamous island was located. Campbell has not publicly commented on the flights or if she ever visited Epstein’s USVI island residence. However, she has said that she “ran in the same circles” as Epstein but has insisted that the two weren’t close.

In addition, some of the flights Campbell took on Epstein’s plane went to Brazil, a place where Campbell has said she would go out on the street and recruit teen girls for the modeling industry. The Miami Herald reported in 2018 that one lawsuit against Epstein claimed that he “used an international modeling agency [Brunel’s Mc2] to recruit girls as young as 13 from Europe, Ecuador and Brazil.” It is unknown if Campbell had played a role in those efforts while traveling to Brazil on Epstein’s aircraft. However, she was romantically linked to Briatore when most of the flights took place, and Briatore – as previously noted – is a circled name in Epstein’s black book. In addition, Campbell was accused of involvement in the sex trafficking scandal where her former boyfriend and long-time friend, the rapper Diddy, who recently stood trial for crimes similar to those reportedly committed by Epstein. One allegation claims Campbell was used by Diddy as a “lure” for his victims. If true, those allegations may offer cause to re-examine her flights on Epstein’s infamous jet.

Furthermore, Campbell was also accused by Epstein victims of being aware of his sex trafficking operation but doing nothing to stop it. Indeed, while Campbell has claimed to have known nothing of Epstein’s crimes and to support his victims, Virginia Giuffre tweeted at Naomi Campbell after his 2019 death, accusing her of knowing what was happening. “You saw me at your parties, you saw me in Epstein’s homes, you saw me on the plane, you saw me get my haircut, you saw me on the streets, you watched me be abused. You saw me!” Giuffre wrote in early 2020. In another tweet Giuffre said that “There is no way in hell that she [Campbell] didn’t know what was happening in front of her own eyes. They were all aware of Epstein and Maxwell’s op – didn’t go at [sic] to hide it either.” Notably, Campbell was also mentioned in the testimony of Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg.

Campbell began dating Briatore in 1998 and the pair dated for four years, ending their relationship in 2002. Some reports characterize their relationship as “on and off.” During this same period, Campbell was said to also have been dating rapper Diddy, with that relationship allegedly taking place in the year 2001, shortly after Diddy ended his relationship with Jennifer Lopez. That same year, in its October issue, the British edition of Vogue featured Diddy and Campbell on its cover with the headline “Naomi and Puff: The Ultimate Power Duo.” Some reports state they dated in 2002. Photographs also show Flavio Briatore partying with Diddy in the early and mid-2000s.

One interview Campbell gave to The Guardian in 2006 reported that Campbell “has always been attracted to older men, mentor figures.” The article added that “sometimes they have been boyfriends, sometimes she’s adopted them immediately as her dads.” With respect to those claims, Campbell was quoted as saying “I’ve got my dad Chris Blackwell. My dad Quincy [Jones]. I’ve got Flavio [Briatore]. And I have Mr. [Nelson] Mandela, my grandfather.” She later stated that she looks for “father figures” as boyfriends. Campbell later stated of Flavio that he was her boyfriend but had since become “her mentor.” They still maintain a friendly relationship.

Shortly after his split with Campbell in 2002, Briatore began dating another supermodel fixture at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows who is also incidentally in Epstein’s black book – Heidi Klum. Klum had been previously associated with Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew – another known associate of Epstein – who were photographed at her Halloween party in 2000. Maxwell was also photographed with Donald Trump and his then-girlfriend and later wife Melania at the same event. Melania had recently begun dating Trump, and Maxwell later claimed to have introduced them. Klum, like Campbell, was alleged by at least one Epstein accuser to have flown on Epstein’s plane. However, Klum denied the allegations.

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From left to right: Flavio Briatore, Elisabetta Gregoraci, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum. The three women all had important relationships with Briatore, two of which produced children.

Briatore’s relationship with Klum was publicly announced in early 2003 (though it appears to have begun in 2002) and it ended in 2004. Despite the short nature of the relationship, it provided plenty of fodder for tabloids, particularly as the couple split shortly after Klum announced her pregnancy and the two argued publicly about where their child should be born. Briatore was largely uninvolved in the life of his daughter with Klum, who was later adopted by Klum’s next partner, the singer Seal. However, Briatore and his daughter have since been photographed together vacationing in Europe. Briatore’s subsequent wife of nine years, Elisabetta Gregoraci, is also a former lingerie model who is best known for being the chief model marketing the Wonderbra. The Wonderbra brand was then owned by the Sara Lee Corporation, which – for many years – was controlled and chaired by members of the organized crime-linked Crown family. The Crowns boast ties to the Epstein-linked “Mega Group” of billionaires and also played a major role in the hiring of Jamie Dimon to lead J.P. Morgan alongside banking interests tied to Leslie Wexner. J.P. Morgan would later be linked to Epstein’s crimes.

Campbell’s subsequent long-term relationship after Briatore also deserves a quick mention. Campbell began dating billionaire Vladislav Doronin in 2008 and the two split in 2013 after Doronin was photographed vacationing with another woman and embracing another model that he had met through Campbell. Doronin, a billionaire of Russia origin, made his money largely through his close-knit relationship with commodity trader and Mossad asset Marc Rich. Rich, a long-time fugitive from U.S. authorities with very close ties to Israeli intelligence, was also close to prominent figures in the “Mega Group,” namely Michael Steinhardt, who, alongside former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, allegedly helped pressure former president Bill Clinton to controversially pardon Rich right before he left office. Rich also had controversial ties to Bruce Rappaport, a shipping magnate and banker tied to U.S. and Israeli intelligence, as well as the criminal bank BCCI, which – in addition to banking drug cartels, intelligence agencies and financial criminals – also ran a sex trafficking operation where minors were abused at the hands of the bank’s “VIPs.”

Doronin began his career working for Marc Rich in Switzerland before founding the Capital Group in Moscow in 1991. Capital Group was originally a commodities trading firm that later turned into a real estate investment company and allegedly engaged in extensive commodities trading with Rich in its early days. One article published by Business Insider referred to Doronin as one of the people Rich had chosen to mentor. Doronin has since divested from Capital Group. Doronin’s subsequent main corporate vehicle, luxury hotel manager Aman, came under fire for hiring Charles McGonigal as its head of security. McGonigal, a former FBI agent, was arrested while working for Aman for taking secret payments from Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, one of Russia’s richest men, started – like Doronin – as a commodity trader, later merging his aluminum mining interests with Marc Rich’s Glencore. The Rothschild family boasts close ties to both Deripaska and Glencore.

Who Pulls the Strings?

This article exploring the ties between Briatore, Campbell, Trump and Epstein does not intend to imply that the Briatore-Trump relationship alone has influenced the current administration’s failure to release the bulk of the so-called Epstein files. Instead, the connections between these individuals reveals that, as Campbell herself once noted, they all swam in the same corrupt circles, and that they share significant ties to people and entities linked to organized crime, corruption across various industries, and sex trafficking. The intricacy of these “circles” will only become more apparent in subsequent entries in this series.

Epstein himself was the management, not the owner, of the criminal enterprises that have now made him infamous. The tight-knit network of oligarchs that enabled Epstein are transnational as their influence spans several countries. They work to manipulate global affairs and global finance while staying out of the limelight themselves, with more public-facing “financiers,” moguls and politicians serving as their middle-men. These oligarchs are the truly unaccountable ones, and their recurring presence in the circles around Epstein, Trump, and some of their long-time, mutual associates appear to be the real reason for the mismanagement of the Epstein files’ release.

However, at least one figure in the Trump administration, aside from Trump himself, may stand to benefit from the administration’s failure to release the lion share of the Epstein-related documents in the government’s hands. As will be detailed in the second article in this series, a close friend of both Donald Trump and Flavio Briatore currently plays an outsized-yet-quiet role in Trump administration foreign policy in addition to having unsettling, yet largely unknown, ties to the Epstein scandal.


Correction: The original version of this article misstated that Alfredo Rodriguez was in prison the year he died. He died shortly after serving his sentence and this article has been updated to reflect that.

Whitney Webb has been a professional writer, researcher and journalist since 2016. She has written for several websites and, from 2017 to 2020, was a staff writer and senior investigative reporter for Mint Press News. She is contributing editor of Unlimited Hangout and author of the book One Nation Under Blackmail.