A new book about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes makes the far-fetched claim that he and Ghislaine Maxwell were in fact spies working for Israel's Mossad and that they lured prominent Western politicians and businessmen into sleeping with underage girls in order to blackmail them.

The claim is made in Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales, a new book by American Media Inc's Dylan Howard, Melissa Cronin and several other reporters who claim to have worked for eight years to unravel 'an international conspiracy the likes of which we have never seen before.’

The theory relies on the belief that Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine’s father who died in mysterious circumstances in 1991 after falling from his yacht, was also a Mossad spy – something that has been claimed for years but never proven.

The book theorizes that it was Robert Maxwell who introduced Jeffrey to the spy world after he started dating Ghislaine.

Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were working on behalf of the Israeli government to film prominent US politicians and celebrities having sex with underage girls to blackmail them later with the footage, a new far-fetched book has claimed

People who know Epstein and Maxwell have claimed in court documents that they met after her father's death.

The book makes no mention of that and instead claims Jeffrey and Ghislaine started dating in the 1980s.

A friend of the Maxwells, Laura Goldman, said she believed not only that Robert Maxwell was a Mossad spy but that Ghislaine carried on his work.

Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy who says he was Robert Maxwell's 'handler', said he 'introduced' Epstein to the intelligence agency and 'wanted' them to 'accept him as part of the group'.

Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine's father, died in suspicious circumstances on his yacht in 1991. It has long been claimed that he was a Mossad spy

'Epstein was hanging around with Robert Maxwell and the daughter was hanging around there too, and that's how they met. Just two young souls, they met,' he said.

In a separate interview, Ben-Menashe claimed: 'Maxwell sort of started liking him and my theory is that Maxwell felt that this guy is going for his daughter. He felt that he could bless him with some work and help him out in like a paternal way.

'They were agents of the Israeli Intelligence Services. Later on, Ghislaine got involved with Israeli intelligence together with him,' he said.

Intelligence 'experts' said that Ghislaine and Jeffrey then used a 'honeytrap' to film prominent political figures having sex with underage girls so that they could later blackmail them.

'Epstein was sort of flying very important people around the world, providing young girls for some of them.

'If you're an intelligence community and you have someone like Epstein who's kind of a celebrity, who can attract celebrities, who can be in part of conversations about world events about the most secret things.

Ghislaine with her late father Robert and her mother, Elizabeth, in 1987, around the time the book's sources say she and Epstein started dating

'If you put people like Clinton on his planes and you can put Ehud Baral[a former Prime Minister of Israel] and a former general, then he is a guy who really matters to you.

'If he is going to be your friend, he is going to work for you.

'He is going to be an asset for you. Look what he can do.

'He can give you information on all those politicians,' Martin Dillon, an author who wrote a book about Robert Maxwell's Mossad links, said.

Epstein died in August by killing himself in his cell. Since then, conspiracy theories about his life and death have run rampant

Philip Giraldi said, a former CIA counter terrorism specialist, wrote in a 209 article: 'There is no other viable explanation for his filming of prominent politicians and celebrities having sex with young girls.'

There is, to date, no proof that Epstein filmed other celebrities and politicians 'having sex with young girls.'

Many of his victims have described how his Upper East Side home was rigged with cameras which filmed the bedrooms and bathrooms and one says he told her he kept the footage in a safe.

However, authorities will not confirm the existence of footage.

'They raided Epstein's Upper East Side home last July and took passports, cash and diamonds from it.

When contacted earlier this year by DailyMail.com about the safe and whether or not it contained any surveillance camera footage, both the FBI and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office declined to comment.

The claims are part of Dylan Howard's new book, Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Epstein hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in New York in August.

His attorneys have suggested he was murdered, and the theory has spread widely.

Many say that he had so much dirt on powerful people that they could not risk him sharing it with the police to try to broker a deal for himself.

The New York Medical Examiner ruled definitively earlier this year that he died of suicide by hanging.

Attorney General Bill Barr said his death was a 'perfect storm of screw ups' caused by a combination of Epstein not having a cellmate to save him and the fact that the prison guards on watch that night failed to check on him.

They were surfing the internet and sleeping, instead, according to indictments against them.