The American tycoon Jeffrey Epstein considered moving to Portugal in 2014according to an exchange of messages revealed in documents now released as part of the Epstein case, advanced o Express in the weekly published this FridayFebruary 13th.
In a conversation with the Swiss banker Ariane de RothschildEpstein would have considered the possibility of residing in Portugal or Switzerland, having expressed interest, albeit with reservations. “However, residing in Portugal is a very high price to pay”he wrote, without specifying the reason, according to the records cited by the newspaper.
The files also indicate that Epstein closely followed political developments in Portugal, including the approval of the law that allows descendants of Safardi Jews to apply for Portuguese nationality. Epstein, son of a Jewish family, researched the topic in 2015.
Also according to documents released by the United States Department of Justice, some of Epstein’s victims would have been hosted in luxury hotels in Lisbon, Porto and Ponta Delgada, with travel and accommodation paid for by themselves. The messages referred to by the weekly suggest that the sex offender – who died in 2019, while in custody – closely controlled his movements, although there is no confirmation that he was in Portugal on the same dates.
Epstein’s ties with Portugal still appear associated to personal contacts, including domestic employees of Portuguese and Brazilian origin, for whom he allegedly paid for several international trips. According to Expresso, a former Portuguese collaborator, Maria Gomes de Melo, denied, in statements to the British press, having witnessed inappropriate behavior involving minors.
“We have never seen anything inappropriate with underage women in about 20 years, not in New York, not on his private island, not in Paris,” said Melo, who assured that the young women were “give massages and cut his nails” by Epstein, but “he stopped there”.
The newspaper mentions another connection with Portugal mentioned in the files, when Epstein’s private jet, known as the “Lolita Express”, carried out technical stops in Santa Maria, in the Azores, in 2002 and 2003. On these trips, several figures from American politics followed, including Bill Clinton. A spokesperson for the former president stated that these were travel related to work at the Clinton Foundation.
“I took that plane with Epstein and my husband. But there were no young girls. There was the pilot, the co-pilot, him, an assistant and just me. That was it,” added the former financial collaborator, a central figure in the hurricane that is shaking North American political structures – and beyond.
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