Newly released US documents reveal emails where a figure matching ex-prince Andrew asked Ghislaine Maxwell for ‘inappropriate friends’.
WASHINGTON: Newly released US government documents have renewed scrutiny of Britain’s former prince Andrew and his links to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
The nearly 30,000 pages of material include emails from 2001 and 2002 sent from an account using the alias “The Invisible Man” and signing off as “A.”
In one August 2001 message, the writer states he is staying at Balmoral, the British royal family’s Scottish summer residence.
The email asks Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice, “Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”
While not explicitly named, several details point toward the former prince, including references to Balmoral and the Royal Navy, which Andrew left in July 2001.
Maxwell replied apologetically that she had found only “appropriate” friends, prompting a terse response from “A” stating “Distraught!”
In another early 2002 email chain, Maxwell forwards plans for a trip to Peru that includes introducing “Andrew” to companions described as “friendly and discreet.”
Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, suggests her acquaintance organise some “two-legged sight-seeing.”
The files also highlight tensions between Andrew and US prosecutors investigating Epstein.
Internal Justice Department emails show lawyers debated how to respond to claims by Andrew’s legal team that he was willing to cooperate.
Prosecutors privately disputed those claims and later accused him of offering “zero cooperation” when asked for an interview.
US authorities sought to question Andrew in connection with investigations into Epstein, whose 2019 jailhouse death was ruled a suicide.
Andrew was not a criminal target in those investigations.
He settled a US civil lawsuit in 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who alleged she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with the royal as a teenager.
Andrew did not admit liability in the settlement.
Giuffre died by suicide in April, and fallout from her posthumously published memoir saw Andrew stripped of his remaining royal titles.
