Spies feared Prince Andrew's friendship with Epstein, book claims
The royal has long denied any involvement in Epstein's sick sexual escapades
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The British secret service was alarmed and fearful over Prince Andrew’s friendship with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a new book claims.
In The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, From Victoria to Diana, authors Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac paint an unflattering portrait of the petulant prince.
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Andrew has long played fast and loose with the world’s despots and oligarchs but spies believed that Epstein was a threat that left the rogue royal open to blackmail.
It was no secret that the hedge fund manager had a penchant for underage girls who he would sexually assault and then allegedly lend out to friends around the world. He died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Andrew has long denied any involvement in Epstein’s sick sexual escapades.
But according to the Daily Mail, spies feared the “friendship created a potential counter-intelligence risk, with fears apparently that Russia could link Andrew to the abuse, thereby creating a blackmail — or ‘leverage’ — possibility.”
Information released by Wikileaks gave a candid portrayal of the 61-year-old royal who became an ambassador for British commercial interests following his 22-year naval career with military hardware being his specialty.
In October 2008, the U.S. ambassador to the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan reported that Andrew told her that Britain was “back in the thick of playing the Great Game” adding that “and this time we aim to win!”
But the royal wasn’t finished when he lambasted the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office and its investigators as idiots for nearly derailing a 40-billion-pound arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
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Andrew didn’t have much nice to say about journalists either: “Those (expletive) journalists … who poke their noses everywhere.”
Meanwhile, Andrew may be in the process of selling the only property he actually owns — a $23.7-million ski chalet in Switzerland — to settle a lawsuit accusing him of not paying $9 million he owed on it, The Times of London reports.
Andrew purchased the seven-bedroom Chalet Helora in 2014 for around $22.75 million with his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, as a family investment.
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Former owner Isabelle de Rouvre sued the pair last year, accusing them of missing the final payment of $9 million. The suit has been dropped now that the couple are selling.
The sale may have also been launched to finance Andrew’s coming courtroom fight against Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who launched a lawsuit claiming she had underage sex with the royal on several occasions.
Roberts said she was forced to have sex with Andrew by Epstein and his muse, Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew denies the allegations.
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