You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Former Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell Worked for Israel
2019-11-10
[MPN News] 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."

Lengthy article.
Related:
Ari Ben-Menashe: 2004-02-24 Zimbabwe trason trial winding up
Posted by:Besoeker

#15  Ref #14: Yes, deflection and the blaming of Jews, a possibility which should be strongly examined.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-11-10 22:11  

#14  Looking at the Zimbabwe story.. I think the guy is a cutout for spreading disinformation, kind of like Steele. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, but at most it's probably a half truth told with a lot of malice. Best to not believe anything if you didn't administer the sodium pentathol yourself.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2019-11-10 20:42  

#13  I don't believe it even now - the clumsiness of it.

If the modern intelligence agencies of the US were more than pale shadows of their former selves, both in a capabilty and a moral sense, Hugo Chavez would have slipped on a banana peel on an up escalator and had a fatal concussion when his head hit the ceiling.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2019-11-10 20:39  

#12  Hmmm... I wouldn't put it past those guys too.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-10 17:02  

#11  He was a blackmailer. He had the goods on a Son of Windsor. That alone would have warranted MI6's close attention if not involvement.

Add his intimate connection to the House of Maxwell and it seems even more likely MI6 were involved.

Mais que scais-je?
Posted by: Lex   2019-11-10 16:51  

#10  It's not like he was a dedicated asset for a particular govt. Mercenary services of several kinds are employed by almost all apparatus around the world. Why, he could have worked for Russians, Chinese, Americans, anyone at any time and his immediate loyalties could have overlapped and intersected at any point. He was a service provider, plain and simple. He used his means to live this wild life, and wielded this power over compromised people and that's what got him killed. I assume there are several such service providers still in the US. They would enjoy the confidence of several bureaucrats and politicians.

Rich, powerful people need their indulgences and a safe space to enjoy what their power purchases. Men like Epstein supply that need and acquire information, favors, leverage etc over the years. Most of the time they do not even put it on the market at all.

I've read and heard about his stupid ideas of populating his estate with mini epsteins, spraying his sperm around. If the Israelis, or any credible agency was running him, mental instability alone would invite a 'termination'. The Farm people regularly choose to keep working with such unstable elements though.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-11-10 16:43  

#9  Well, you know the Bob Maxwell story, so she came by it honestly. Preacher's son the preacher, farmer's son the farmer, policeman's son the.....
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-11-10 16:01  

#8  I don't believe it even now - the clumsiness of it.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-11-10 15:43  

#7  A little over two years ago I would not have 'believed' our own intelligence community would foment a US Presidential coup d'état.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-11-10 15:34  

#6  Hard to believe somebody who claims to be associated with half the sacred services in the world.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-11-10 15:27  

#5  Ref #1: Should've looked up wiki article on Ben-Menashe before posting, Besoeker.

I don't believe we have the luxury of discounting anything at this point. Revenge as a motive?

I was betting on a US/GB bilateral, but it could have been an IC ménage à trois....but what do I know ?

It's on the 'possibles' wall. We can always chuckle and hit 'brain housing group' delete later. Let's see what comes of it, shall, we.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-11-10 15:26  

#4  I did a name link search on Mr. Ben-Menashe — the results are now added to the article.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-11-10 14:54  

#3  Wikipedia: Ari Ben-Menashe

Ari Ben-Menashe (Hebrew: ארי בן מנשה; born Tehran, 4 December 1951)[1] is an Iranian-born Israeli businessman, security consultant and author. He was previously an employee of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate from 1977 to 1987 and an arms dealer.[2] He now lives in Montreal, Canada, and runs an international commodity exporting firm, Traeger Resources and Logistics Inc.[3]

He’s the one who leaked the Iran-Contra story to the press.
Posted by: trailing wife   2019-11-10 14:51  

#2  Amazing insight into intel background and context of who might be behind the execution. Read the whole article.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2019-11-10 13:44  

#1  Should've looked up wiki article on Ben-Menashe before posting, Besoeker.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-11-10 13:08  

00:00