YOU`VE heard of Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire investor, financier and convicted paedophile who, if we are to believe the US Department of Justice, killed himself while incarcerated at a maximumsecurity prison. At one time, Epstein was the toast of several towns, catapulting into the highest echelons of the global elite by virtue of the parties he would host along with his sometime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking. The parties would be held at any of his six properties, which included one of the largest private homes in New York and the now infamous `Epstein island.

Then there were the four private jets used to ferry his high-profile guests, including a Boeing-727 aptly nicknamed the `Lolita Express`. In 2019 journalist Nick Bryant reported that Epstein`s residences and planes were peppered with hidden cameras, allegedly for the purpose of using the recordings to compromise and blackmail rich and powerful people.

While rumours of illicit sexual activities and sex trafficking had swirled around Epstein for years, the first formal complaint was filed in 2005 by the parents of a 14-year-old who claimed that she was molested at his mansion. From here on the floodgates opened with accuser after accuser, mostly high-school girls lured by the prospect of easy money and modelling contracts, coming forward. But Epstein lived a charmed life and, time and again, he was released after the payment of nominal bonds, allowed cushy plea bargains and, in 2008, was granted a `non-prosecution deal` in which he pled guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution, allowing him to swap a potential life sentence for a 13-month work-release programme. So stunning was this judicial climbdown that at the time, US prosecutor Alexander Acosta was reported to have said that he was told to back down because Epstein `belonged to [an] intelligence [service].

But which one? Epstein`s rise to fame and fortune may provide a few clues: he was a college dropout teaching physics and mathematics at the Dalton School, a private school in Manhattan`s upscale Upper East Side. Here, somehow, he attracted the interest of one Alan Greenberg, the chief executive of the investment bank Bear Sterns who, for reasons unknown, was so impressed by Epstein that he offered him a job at his company despite Epstein having no background in finance whatsoever.

He then made the acquaintance of Leslie Wexner, a Jewish billionaire who, along with Charles Bronfman, founded the MEGA group in 1991, which is described as`an informal network of influential Jewish businessmen focused on philanthropy and pro-Israel advocacy.` Former NSA counterspy John Schindler says the group was `viewed by Israel intelligence officials as a vehicle for espionage and influence operations in the United States.` Schindler also believes that Epstein was thus connected to Israeli espionage activities. Former Israeli spy Avi Ben-Menashe also claimed Epstein and Ghislaine worked for Israeli military intelligence, specialising in `honey-traps` to blackmail prominent persons. He also claims that Robert Maxwell, a media baron, disgraced financier and known Israeli intel asset who also happens to be Ghislaine Maxwell`s father, first recruited Epstein for this task.

Robert Maxwell also had close relations with Bronfman, establishing links that intersect with allegations of the MEGA group`s links to Israeli spy networks.

Maxwell is also alleged to have helped distribute a bugged version of computer management software, PROMIS, to severalgovernments, allowing Israel to conduct mass spying.

One institute thus targeted was the Los Alamos National Laboratory, arguably America`s most important nuclear research facility, a feat in which he was reportedly facilita-ted by other members of MEGA. Like Epstein, Maxwell was also found dead under suspicious circumstances in 1991, with some speculating he died by suicide.

That`s not the only `suicide` in this story: Epstein accuser Victoria Giuffre was recently found dead in her home, with the death being ruled a suicide. Interestingly, Giuffre had previously tweeted in 2019: `I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape or form am I suicidal... Too many evil people want to see me [quieted].` Three years after Epstein`s death Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model scout connected to the case was also found having `hanged himself` in his jail cell.

As for Epstein, it is curious that both guards on duty at the time of his death were asleep despite having to check on him every 30 minutes, and that his cellmate was moved out just a day before Epstein allegedly killed himself and a full minute is missing from the released CCTV footage of his cell door. • The wnter is a joumalist.

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