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It was the damning image of him strolling via New York’s Central Park in 2010 with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein that triggered Prince Andrew’s dramatic downfall.
Throughout his catastrophic BBC interview with Emily Maitlis 4 years in the past, the Prince insisted the “sole objective” of visiting Epstein in December 2010 was to interrupt off their friendship due to the billionaire’s 18-month jail sentence for little one prostitution offences.
Andrew insisted he needed to ’present management’ and inform Epstein in particular person.
However now a bombshell authorized doc seen by The Mail on Sunday reveals how on the time of his New York go to, the King’s brother had additionally requested Epstein’s assist with securing $200 million (£153 million) in funding for a mysterious gasoline firm.
Epstein forwarded the request to his non-public banker Jes Staley on the primary of no less than 5 days that Andrew spent at Epstein’s $115 million Manhattan mansion.
The doc states: “On December 2, 2010, Jeffrey Epstein forwards an e-mail to Staley from Prince Andrew with an inquiry the Prince acquired from Aria Petroleum searching for a $200m working capital line. For the reason that firm is predicated within the US, Prince Andrew appeared to counsel Epstein join them with a US financial institution.”
The message appears to undermine Andrew’s justification for visiting Epstein and raises new questions on his function as Britain’s roving commerce ambassador between 2001 and 2011.
The Authorities this weekend declined to say whether or not the strategy to Epstein was made as a part of his function as commerce envoy or if it was sanctioned by ministers.
Nevertheless, former minister Norman Baker stated: “Andrew’s case that he flew over to America to interrupt up relations with Jeffrey Epstein was threadbare at greatest. Now it’s been shot via to items.”
The 22-page doc, detailing emails between Epstein and Staley, has been launched on account of a case filed in opposition to JP Morgan financial institution by the US Virgin Islands authorities.
The financial institution, the place Epstein was a shopper, is being sued over claims that it knowingly benefited from his sex-trafficking operation.
The messages don’t clarify the place Aria Petroleum was primarily based, what precisely its enterprise was or the way it managed to strategy a senior member of the Royal Household.
The one two firms named Aria Petroleum buying and selling within the US in 2010 seem like native companies linked to petrol stations.
One, whose deal with is a petroleum station and small grocery retailer in Florida, advised an MoS reporter that they had by no means had any contact with Prince Andrew or Epstein. The deal with of the second firm, now dissolved, was a petroleum station in Los Angeles.
Paperwork leaked in 2021 claimed {that a} totally different firm named Aria Petroleum – a UK-Cypriot oil dealer – partnered with one other agency to produce jet gasoline to US forces in Afghanistan from 2012.
Aria’s UK arm was established that very same 12 months and paid out a $77.5 million dividend in 2018. It was wound up two years later. The previous administrators couldn’t be reached for remark.
In the meantime, the authorized doc additionally reveals how Epstein emailed Staley to inform him Andrew needed to characterize in China the pursuits of an organisation he known as “casanov”.
It states this will likely have been JP Morgan Cazenove – Cazenove being a UK funding banking enterprise often known as the Queen’s dealer, and one of many Metropolis’s oldest companies earlier than its banking enterprise was purchased in 2009 by Wall Avenue large JP Morgan.
In his e-book Blue Blood, Robert Pickering, Cazenove’s former chief govt, recalled a gathering with Andrew when he was commerce ambassador.
“The Duke had a behavior of asking questions… so left-field that I struggled to reply,” he stated.
Prince Andrew was contacted for remark.
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