The secret connections of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, accused of establishing a child abuse network and found dead by suicide in his prison cell, with international political and technological circles have been revealed. Leaked emails demonstrated his relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, meetings with Peter Thiel, and Russian contacts.
Redaksiya reports that documents published on May 2025 on the platform Distributed Denial of Secrets, and allegedly obtained by the Palestinian hacker group “Handala,” exposed Epstein's plans to invest in surveillance technologies in the 2010s. The letters, said to be taken from Barak's email inboxes, confirmed connections established with technology, intelligence, and international political circles between 2014 and 2016.
In 2015, Epstein invested in the Reporty Homeland Security (now Carbyne) project through Barak. One of the project's founders was Pinhas Buchris, the former head of Israel's cyber intelligence unit Unit 8200. The letters show Epstein attempting to introduce Barak to Palantir founder Peter Thiel and presenting the Reporty project to Thiel's investment fund.
The email correspondence also indicates that Epstein established contacts with Russian economic circles. He attempted to arrange meetings for Barak with Sergey Belyakov, Russia's Deputy Minister of Economic Development, and Viktor Vekselberg, a businessman close to Putin. In 2015, the issue of an invitation to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum came up.
Epstein explored opportunities to invest in security companies and surveillance technologies not only through the US and Russia but also via China and the United Kingdom. Although Barak announced that he ceased cooperation from 2019 onwards, the documents indicate that he played a significant role in Epstein's investor circles.
The leaked documents prove that Epstein sought to establish secret influence not only in sexual crimes but also in international security technologies and financial circles.
Sevinc Kərimova
