Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy and alleged “handler” of Robert Maxwell said of Epstein: “Maxwell introduced him to us, and he wanted us to accept him as part of our group. Ben-Menashe claimed that Epstein and Ghislaine were already dating in the late 1980s, and that Maxwell Senior grew fond of the young upstart. “Epstein was hanging around with Robert Maxwell and the daughter was hanging around there too, and that’s how they met,” he told author James Robertson in an interview from Montreal. “Just two young souls, they met.” “Maxwell sort of started liking him, and my theory is that Maxwell felt that this guy is going for his daughter,” Ben-Menashe said. “He felt that he could bless him with some work and help him out in like a paternal [way].” According to the former spy, the ultimate order to embrace Epstein and involve him in the ongoing arms deals came from “the bosses” at Israeli intelligence headquarters. “They were agents of the Israeli Intelligence Services,” he told James Robertson. “Later on [Ghislaine] got involved with Israeli intelligence together with him. But not in this arms deal with Iran business,” Ben-Menashe also told Zev Shalev, former CBS News executive producer and investigative journalist for the website Narativ. “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 told Robertson, “Mr. Epstein was the simple idiot who was going around providing girls to all kinds of politicians in the United States. See, fucking around is not a crime. It could be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime. But fucking a fourteen-year-old girl is a crime. And he was taking photos of politicians fucking fourteen-year-old girls — if you want to get it straight. They would just blackmail people, they would just blackmail people like that.”

Ben-Menashe is a mysterious Iranian-born Israeli businessman who claims to have worked for Mossad from 1977 to 1987, The Sun reported this week. He was arrested in 1989 in the US on arms dealing charges but was acquitted in 1990 after a jury accepted he was acting on behalf of Israel. Israel tried to distance themselves from him, with government sources saying he never had anything to do with intelligence services, although other news reports — in both the US and Israel — confirmed he did. He later wrote a book called Profits of War: Inside the US-Israeli Arms Network and in the early 1990s claimed that Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine’s dad, worked for Mossad.

But there remains more questions than answers about how Epstein came to be one of the most horrifying villains the modern world has ever known — a shameless pedophile who built a network of child sex abuse around the globe. But in this case, the rot of evil goes even deeper than that.

How did Epstein pull off his sex trafficking scheme?

Who was a participant, and who might have helped him?

These questions — and more — linger still, even after inmate 76318–054 was found dead at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.

In a previous post, we detailed how Epstein used the honey trap — or “love trap,” as it is sometimes known—

In either case, it has left many people asking what powers were behind the incident?

In “EPSTEIN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES”, investigative reporters Melissa Cronin, James Robertson and myself answer that question, contrasting Epstein’s puzzling billion-dollar fortune and famous friends with dramatic scenes of international espionage in Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In another worldwide exclusive interview in the book, we speak to former Palm Beach County Deputy Sheriff John Mark Dougan, who reveals the truth about Epstein’s connections to Russian Intelligence.

We explain why Vladimir Putin granted political asylum to this key individual connected to the case—a man who has Epstein’s kompromat, or compromising material, in his possession.

So, where are the Epstein blackmail tapes?

Dougan, who has been recently reported to be a person of interest to Britain’s MI6, claims to have direct knowledge and access to Epstein’s secret DVDs that contain footage from the bedrooms in his estate, all of which had multiple cameras installed in them.

Dougan told Robertson:

“They weren’t tapes so much as DVDs. I don’t know if these were footages or not, but every bedroom in Epstein’s houses had multiple cameras in them. He used to keep records of everybody. He used to store everything. So the Palm Beach Police Department, they knew that there were thousands and thousands of these DVDs. Except… Now, this is very interesting. When they went to search for them, they were gone.” “It’s not really a question of who would have had access. The question you should be asking is: Who had knowledge that the search was coming? And the answer to that is the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. Because the state attorney’s office and sheriff’s office, they’re the ones who have to take the warrants and take them in front of the judge to get them signed off. There were elements within these two organizations that didn’t want to see anything happen to Epstein.” “Do I think that Epstein was probably put up to getting some wealthy people to sleep with some underage women so those people could be blackmailed by Western intelligence agencies? Absolutely I do.” “He was able to leave jail basically anytime he wanted. Right? This is like really unheard of. But he was able to leave jail as long as he had two deputies go with him on an overtime detail. They were paid overtime detail. Now, overtime detail, this is Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, by contract are selected out of a random pool. This was different. These deputies that would go with him were handpicked by the sheriff. And there were guys specifically who would look the other way while he was bringing underage girls into his office and into his home.”

All told, “EPSTEIN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES” exposes a shocking “criminal enterprise” (as recently described by the FBI), one with deep business and intelligences ties across a number of countries.

“EPSTEIN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES” by DYLAN HOWARD, MELISSA CRONON & JAMES ROBERTSON is available for purchase at all good book stores along with Amazon and Barnes & Noble.