Peter Mandelson offered to help Jeffrey Epstein obtain a Russian visa via a billionaire oligarch with close links to Vladimir Putin.
The paedophile financier planned to use the visa to travel to Moscow to meet young women, documents released by the US Department of Justice suggest.
Epstein emailed the disgraced ex-Labour minister, who had left government six months earlier, on 9 November 2010 asking if he could help acquiring a Russian visa.
Epstein emailed Lord Mandelson saying: ‘I do not have a visa for Russia, it is a bank holiday in Paris today… any ideas how I can get one.’
The emails suggest Lord Mandelson replied hours later indicating he was willing to help Epstein, who had been released from prison about a year earlier after serving 13-months for soliciting a minor.
The following day Lord Mandelson emailed Epstein again and said that an associate ‘can get visa through OD’ – thought to refer to Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska who was sanctioned by the UK after the start of the Ukraine war.
A few hours later Lord Mandelson said to Epstein: ‘OD office helping on visas. Told him he [should] meet u and of course he wants to. He’s travelling at moment.’
There is a known link between Lord Mandelson and Deripaska. In 2008 the then EU trade commissioner and George Osborne, then shadow chancellor, were embroiled in controversy after attending a party on the oligarch’s superyacht in Corfu.
Peter Mandelson is pictured and mentioned many times throughout the released Epstein filesÂ
In this photo, Peter Mandelson stands in white underwear talking to a woman in a bathing robe
It was also not the first time Lord Mandelson had offered to help with official documents. In 2001 he was forced to resign from Tony Blair’s cabinet after intervening in a passport application by an Indian businessman.
On the same day that Epstein asked Lord Mandelson for help with the visa, he exchanged emails with a woman in Russia in which they discussed finding ‘someone very nice soon for you’. The email adds: ‘I have around 10 friends I’m working on now.’
Three days later Epstein asked the woman if she had had ‘any luck’, to which she said she had found a ‘gorgeous’ woman who was ‘really interested’. The woman added that they had ‘told her everything and she is completely fine’.
However the emails show that the Moscow trip was ultimately cancelled because of delays in obtaining Russian visas.
Lord Mandelson was approached for comment. There is no suggestion that he knew why Epstein wanted the visa and he has consistently denied any sexual misconduct or awareness of Epstein’s crimes.
The files also suggest that Lord Mandelson helped an investment banker friend of Epstein to secure a deal with the Government to buy an energy trading business part-owned by crisis-stricken RBS.
The sale was arranged following a meeting Epstein said he had set up between investment banker Jes Staley, then chancellor Alistair Darling and Lord Mandelson, who was business secretary at the time.Â
In February 2010 the Government announced an agreement had been reached to sell the business to JP Morgan for $1.7billion (£1.2billion) dollars.
The emails also show that, despite this, JP Morgan snubbed Lord Mandelson as he hunted for a job after leaving office.
Lord Mandelson has previously said: ‘I can say clearly, though, I regret ever having known Epstein. I was wrong to believe Epstein and swallow his lies following his conviction and to continue my association with him afterwards. I deeply regret doing so and apologise unequivocally to the women and girls who suffered.’Â
Mandelson was approached for comment. There is no suggestion he knew why Epstein wanted the visa and he has consistently denied any sexual misconduct or awareness of Epstein’s crimes.Â
