Child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed he made a fortune dealing guns and drugs, and his former associates say he worked with intelligence agencies around the world, according to a new report.
Jeffrey Epstein made “a fortune in guns, drugs and diamonds” and “moved in intelligence circles.”
Vicky Ward, a journalist who was one of the first to cover Epstein nearly two decades ago, wrote in a new article in Rolling Stone that Steven Hoffenberg, a former associate of Epstein’s whom she visited in prison in 2002, said Epstein operated in intelligence circles around the world.
Hoffenberg, who was in prison for a Ponzi scheme, said he was swindled by Epstein, who took millions from him and then cooperated with federal prosecutors to provide information against Hoffenberg.
Hoffenberg “claimed that Epstein moved in intelligence circles,” Ward wrote, adding that Epstein became enraged when he asked him about Hoffenberg.
Hoffenberg told Ward that Epstein learned how to move money overseas and was mentored by a British arms dealer, Douglas Leese, who died a decade ago.
Several sources told Ward that Epstein did, in fact, work in the arms world in the 1980s and that the job led to more work with governments around the world.
However, Ward suggests that Epstein’s sex crimes were of his own volition, writing that sources told him that Epstein was the one who “decided to go a step further and compromise influential people by recording them doing things they wouldn’t want made public.”
Child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed he made a fortune dealing guns and drugs, and his former associates say he worked with intelligence agencies around the world, according to a new report.
