In June 2014, Jeffrey Epstein wrote to Peter Thiel \u2013 co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, the data analysis company serving American and Israeli intelligence agencies \u2013 a sentence that serves as a summary of a worldview: \u201cImagine if this chaos was what Obama really wanted: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt. We would have to admit a brilliantly executed strategy.\u201d His was an interpretation. The Middle East and North Africa as a chessboard of deliberate disorder. Epstein as a privileged observer \u2013 perhaps something more \u2013 of that game.
The United States Department of Justice files draw numerous maps, including one: \u200b\u200bthe map of Epstein's geopolitical and financial ambitions in a region he had learned to frequent methodically. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Qatar, Egypt, Libya: in each of these countries Epstein had cultivated relationships and channels, advanced proposals. An intermediary of a peculiar kind, one who transforms access to people into a currency and trust into leverage. A systemic operator who had understood, before and better than many, that the Arab world was a region in flux. Those who knew how to navigate its informal corridors could reap extraordinary returns. Diplomatic normalisations, frozen sovereign assets, large construction sites, and privatisations of strategic resources: Epstein was not always at the origin of these processes, but he systematically knew how to approach those who governed them.
For the Arab and Middle Eastern world, these files represent an uncomfortable mirror. They reveal how transnational power networks operate across Gulf monarchies, Western governments, intelligence services and international institutions; and how privileged access to these networks was obtained, at least in part, through complicity in a criminal system that exploited the most vulnerable subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article reconstructs the Arab and Middle Eastern dimension of that network: the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, and Algeria, the latter as a separate case, as it was a country the network never managed to penetrate. The map, with names, dates, sums, and \u2013 where the documents allow \u2013 intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
La storia mediorientale di Epstein inizia nel 1981 a Londra, con un trafficante d’armi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That year, Epstein \u2013 freshly sacked from Bear Stearns \u2013 took a trip to the UK. There he met Douglas Leese, an aristocratic arms dealer who had made his fortune by brokering the biggest British military order in history: the sale of Tornado fighter jets to the Royal Saudi Air Force. According to the The New York Times<\/a>, Leese \u201cmentored\u201d Epstein and took him to meetings with the British and international elite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fu Leese introduced Epstein to two figures who would define his trajectory. The first was Robert Maxwell, the British print magnate already known for his documented links to Mossad, MI6, and the KGB, and father of Ghislaine, Epstein\u2019s future accomplice, now serving a twenty-year sentence. The second was Adnan Khashoggi, the world\u2019s most famous Saudi arms dealer billionaire., at the heart of the Iran-Contra affair<\/a>, nell\u2019elenco dei “client” della societ\u00e0 di consulenza di Epstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Epstein initiated a brief partnership with J. Stanley Pottinger, a former US Department of Justice official involved in a network selling arms to Iran between 1981 and 1986: the Iran-Contra years. During that period, Israel served as an intermediary in American arms sales to Iran, and the proceeds funded the Contras in Nicaragua. It was in this environment that Epstein learned to navigate state secrets, covert operations, and networks that spanned multiple governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A significant detail: in Epstein's Manhattan apartment, FBI agents found an expired Austrian passport with his photograph and a false name in his safe. It is an address in Saudi Arabia<\/a>. I suoi avvocati spiegarono che serviva da protezione contro “potenziali rapitori”. La spiegazione non convinse nessuno degli inquirenti. Insieme al passaporto, diamanti e contanti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of all the Arab countries featuring in the Epstein files, the UAE has the most documented and detailed presence, indicating a structural relationship, involving the most powerful figure in global logistics and a UN diplomat, and indirectly reaching Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem \u00e8 uno degli uomini pi\u00f9 potenti degli Emirati Arabi Uniti. Nato a Dubai da una famiglia con legami diretti con la famiglia regnante Al Maktoum, ha supervisionato l’espansione della zona franca di Jebel Ali negli anni Ottanta e poi guidato DP World, il colosso logistico che oggi gestisce il dieci per cento del traffico globale di container in 186 porti e 77 paesi. Il suo nome compare oltre 4.700 volte nei documenti declassificati. Le email coprono un arco che va dal 2007 fino a poche settimane prima della morte di Epstein nel 2019; la quasi totalit\u00e0 sono successive alla condanna del 2008. “Non mi hai mai deluso, nemmeno una volta, nemmeno mezza\u201d, scrive Epstein a Sultan bin Sulayem nel giugno 2013 (file DOJ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The documents reveal that Sulayem regularly visited Little Saint James, Epstein's private island in the Caribbean. \u201cI had truly wonderful times on your island,\u201d he wrote in June 2013. When Hurricane Irma devastated the area in September 2017, Sulayem offered to send his own engineers to make the island \u201churricane-proof.\u201d Even more relevant: according to reports from Miami Herald<\/a>, Epstein purchased the adjacent island, Great St. James Cay, through a shell company whose beneficiary was Sulayem. The owner, Christian Kjaer, refused to sell to Epstein due to his sex offense convictions. To circumvent the refusal, Epstein used the Emirati's name. A spokesperson for Sulayem has denied this, but an email from December 2016 in which Sulayem described Epstein as a \u201cdear friend and business partner\u201d who owned his islands contradicts the official version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I file mostrano anche che Sulayem tentava attivamente di trovare impieghi per giovani donne russe della cerchia di Epstein: una come “massaggiatrice” in un resort turco, un’altra in un hotel a Dubai. Nell’agosto 2018, in un’email a Epstein, Sulayem gli chiedeva: “Possiamo trovare un lavoro per lei in qualche hotel di Dubai?” In un’altra email descriveva in dettaglio una studentessa universitaria a Dubai con cui aveva una relazione, usando un linguaggio esplicitamente sessuale. Nel novembre 2007, Sulayem raccontava a Epstein dei suoi tentativi di incontrare una modella: \u201cDopo diversi mesi di tentativi, siamo riusciti a incontrarci a New York. C\u2019\u00e8 stato un malinteso: lei voleva business! Io volevo solo figa!\u201d Epstein rispondeva: \u201cLode ad Allah, ci sono ancora persone come te.\u201d Il deputato repubblicano Thomas Massie, dopo aver visionato i file non censurati al DOJ, ha reso su X che il destinatario di un’email del 24 aprile 2009 in cui Epstein scriveva “Ho adorato il video della tortura” era Sulayem; l\u2019identificazione \u00e8 stata confermata dal Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, che cit\u00f2 il file EFTA00666117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June 2015, Epstein wrote in a single email, addressed to both: \u201cEhud \u2013 Sultan. Sultan \u2013 Ehud.\u201d Three words documenting the moment he put Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister, and Sulayem in touch. Barak was then chairman of Carbyne, an Israeli cybersecurity company he co-founded with Epstein's funding, born out of the ecosystem of Unit 8200 of Israeli military intelligence, whose core business<\/em> was to allow security agencies to access real-time location, audio and video from users' mobile phones. On 5 August 2018, Sulayem wrote to Epstein expressing interest in Carbyne, as it states Middle East Eye<\/a>. So Epstein acted as an unofficial diplomatic channel between Israel and the UAE years before the 2020 Abraham Accords made the normalisation public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In July 2018, Sulayem travelled to Tel Aviv for medical treatment for his daughter. In an email to Barak, he thanked him \u201cfor your help with our visa.\u201d Barak replied that he would be happy to meet him during the visit. Epstein also facilitated a meeting between Barak and the former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sulayem usava Epstein anche come canale politico in Europa. Epstein inoltr\u00f2 a Peter Mandelson \u2013 allora Segretario di Stato al Commercio britannico \u2013 un dossier di DP World su un progetto portuale sul Tamigi da 1,8 miliardi di sterline. Mandelson rispose: “Chiamer\u00f2 e parler\u00f2 con lui.” DP World realizz\u00f2 poi il London Gateway. Mandelson \u00e8 stato successivamente rimosso dalla posizione di ambasciatore britannico a Washington per i suoi legami con Epstein. A fine febbraio \u00e8 stato arrestato dalla polizia britannica e poi rilasciato su cauzione. \u00c8 sotto indagine, ma nei suoi confronti non \u00e8 stato ancora formalizzato alcun capo d\u2019imputazione.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In un’email particolarmente rilevante, Sulayem inform\u00f2 Epstein di stare aspettando l’approvazione per acquisire un asset infrastrutturale “sensibile” condizionato a un accordo bilaterale UAE-Russia, aggiungendo: “Ho ricevuto un invito ufficiale dall’ufficio di Putin per un incontro testa a testa per ottenere il via libera direttamente da lui.” Epstein gir\u00f2 quella corrispondenza a un contatto ignoto con la nota: “For your eyes only.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the summer of 2017, Sulayem ordered 30 ancestral DNA testing kits for Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, having them delivered to Epstein\u2019s apartment. The kits were registered under the name \u201cRashid Epstein.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nPassport with residence in Saudi Arabia<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The United Arab Emirates: the central hub<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem: the friend who never let him down<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The island, the ghost island and the women<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The secret Israel-UAE channel and Carbyne<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Intelligence, Putin and DNA kits for the ruler of Dubai<\/h3>\n\n\n\n