As Ghislaine Maxwell enters her third week in prison, there’s plenty of speculation but no confirmation that Maxwell is cooperating with prosecutors. Is Ghislaine preparing to name names or can she offer prosecutors something more valuable?
Updated: July 22, 2020
Things can often get complicated for the British House of Windsor and its former subjects in the far-flung reaches of a once-great empire. And nothing could be more complicated than the Queen’s favorite son’s alleged involvement in a human trafficking ring that systematically raped teenage girls.
For months, Ghislaine Maxwell has telegraphed that she would not be arrested because her powerful friends, including Prince Andrew, would use their influence to keep her out of jail. So it came as a shock when FBI investigators arrived at her $1 Million New Hampshire hideaway early on July 2 with an arrest warrant in hand.
Maxwell spotted the arresting officers through her kitchen window as they approached the property. She immediately attempted to hide in an interior room. Officers repeatedly knocked on the front door and then forced it open.
Even Maxwell’s personal regiment of former British marines was unable to keep her out of the law’s clutches. Maxwell spent a night in a New Hampshire jail before transferring to the Brooklyn Detention Center, where she is under suicide watch having been denied bail.
Watch part 1 of the Narativ podcast covering the Maxwell bail hearing, with guest Epstein witness Steven Hoffenberg.
State of Independence
Maxwell now faces 35 years in prison on six counts related to human trafficking and perjury which took place between 1994-1997. Even if she serves her sentence concurrently, it could be a full decade before she is free.
The lengthy potential sentence combined with Maxwell’s 58-years of age had everyone convinced she would begin cooperating immediately, but things didn’t turn out that way.
Prosecutors say Maxwell lied about her estate and about her late spouse John Robert Craigie, whom few people knew she had married. She also appears to have lied about her travels, claiming she hadn’t left the U.S. since Epstein’s death even though she was spotted at Buckingham Palace earlier this year.
Maxwell will quickly tire of the rudimentary accommodation in her Brooklyn prison. People who know her well tell me she could not handle spending months or years behind bars. Maxwell’s outlook could improve dramatically if she is able to offer prosecutors new information.
That information is likely related to the financial crimes of the Epstein network. Maxwell signed off on suspicious payments on Epstein’s behalf made via Deutsche Bank, as did Darren Indyke, Epstein’s attorney and current executor to the Estate.
The Duke
Prince Andrew remains under investigation for human trafficking but he too may have useful information about Epstein’s money laundering. After all, the two men were friends for the better part of two decades.
In 2008, when Jeffrey Epstein was given a reduced sentence on a much lesser prostitution charge. “We were told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to ‘leave it alone,” according to a quote attributed to then prosecutor Alex Acosta.
It’s true Epstein and Maxwell were agents for Israeli Military Intelligence but according to court testimony it wasn’t intelligence which tipped the scale for Epstein. It was Prince Andrew.
In Part 2, Steven Hoffenberg describes a billion-dollar financial crimes operation he says he witnessed.
Brothers In Arms
Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein were business associates well before Ghislaine Maxwell introduced Prince Andrew to 17-year-old Virginia Guiffre.
Even as a young Royal Navy seaman, Prince Andrew was an ardent supporter of the British arms sector. Along with his brother Prince Charles, Prince Andrew helped shepherd the $4 Billion al -Yamamah arms deals which traded Saudi oil for British-made weapons between 1987-2007.
The al-Yamamah deals were put together by Jeffrey Epstein and Adnan Khashoggi under the auspices of British arms trader Sir Douglas Leese.
It follows then that Epstein likely met Prince Andrew in the early 90s. Prince Andrew’s private secretary confirmed that the Duke met Epstein in the 1990s through Ghislaine Maxwell. The Duke disputes this account, saying he met Jeffrey Epstein in 1999.
Prince Andrew’s specific role in assembling the al-Yamamah deal is unclear but in a leaked Wikileaks diplomatic cable he assailed the media and anti-corruption investigators, “who had had the ‘idiocy’ of almost scuttling the the al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia.”
After retiring from the Royal Navy, Prince Andrew was appointed the U.K.’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment in 2001. It’s in that role that he raised more than a few eyebrows about contacts with Libyan and Tunisian warlords and a Kyrgyzstan arms deal worth $385 Million.
The presence of royal family members in any arms deals may sound suspect but as heads of state, Royals can deal more plainly with other Royal families. Some royal family members can also do things considered illegal if done by a commoner thanks to varying forms of immunity from prosecution.
Arms deals are often very lucrative for brokers and the sector is rife with self-enrichment and corruption. Al-Yamamah was no exception, a joint investigation discovered large scale and systematic corruption.
Did Prince Andrew make money off his arms deals? The answer is almost certainly yes but because Andrew is immune from civil prosecution, how much he pocketed is difficult to figure out.
Follow The Money
Sir Douglas Leese was also instrumental in orchestrating a generational handover of Robert Maxwell’s spy business to Jeffrey Epstein. While there is no physical proof of this transaction, two eyewitnesses, Steven Hoffenberg and Ari Ben Menashe confirmed this was Robert Maxwell’s intent.
After Robert Maxwell’s death, Jeffrey Epstein moved the business center of gravity from London to New York, including a lucrative arms partnerships with Adnan Khashoggi and Douglas Leese.
Underpinning Epstein’s human trafficking and arms trading operation was a financial network that laundered dirty profits into the U.S. economy and out into offshore holdings.
Some of the laundered millions were funneled into securities and other schemes, sometime resulting in controlled or uncontrolled company and market crashes.
As investigators follow the money in in the Epstein-Maxwell case, they will likely uncover crimes executed on a massive scale and worth billions of dollars. Prosecutors have a number of options at their disposal including seizing the estate’s assets, said to be worth about $ 663 M. That money is already frozen under a British Virgin Island court order but there is no doubt the involvement of the SDNY will turn up the heat on the estate’s trustees Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn.
All of this goes a long way to explain why Ghislaine’s lawyer specializes in money laundering and counts Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as a client.
Both Maxwell and Prince Andrew can almost certainly name names which may include possibly two U.S. presidents, but that only exposes Epstein’s cover-up scheme for the actual underlying crimes. What we really need to know is how much money Epstein got away with, how he pulled off such massive crimes, and most importantly, to whom he answered?
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We don’t care how much money Epstein made We want to know what the bigger picture is about how he made the money and who he was working for REALLY Not the rubbish about Israeli intelligence which is just a front dor England anyway And Englands royals be cause Queen Victoria had her ancestry tea ex back to King David and the Bible says a descendant of David will become King of Israel.When the Pipe was made Godfather of George he gave a replica of the Orb of Edward as his gift The Orb of Edward legally grants the owner the right to take everything from the Jews Everything .No doubt the Pope or Vatican has the original and it was a reminder of who legally rules whom .
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