UK investigating whether Epstein used air force bases for sex trafficking

Probe of Royal Air Force bases comes amid concerns trafficked women were brought to UK on board Epstein’s private jets.

UK Defence Secretary John Healey has called for an investigation into whether convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women and girls into the United Kingdom on private jets that landed at Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) bases.

British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Thursday that Healey had told UK officials to search through two decades of Ministry of Defence files and “leave no stone unturned” in the hunt for any links between the late paedophile’s private jet and RAF facilities.

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The investigation launched by Healey comes days after former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged police to investigate whether the former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, had used taxpayer-funded jet travel and RAF bases to meet with Epstein.

The Telegraph reported that Brown was particularly concerned about a private flight Epstein took on a Gulfstream jet that landed at an airbase in Norfolk in December 2000, before he visited the royal retreat of Sandringham with Mountbatten-Windsor.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested last week over alleged misconduct in public office, while serving as the UK trade envoy, for reportedly sending confidential government documents to Epstein.

UK, EU to ‘look into’ Mandelson’s Epstein ties

The UK’s Intelligence and Security Committee said on Thursday it hopes it will soon be able to publish documents shedding light on how political insider Peter Mandelson was appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer as the UK’s ambassador to the United States, despite his longtime ties to Epstein being well known.

“We are proceeding at pace to publish the first tranche of documents in early March,” a spokesperson for the intelligence committee said.

Mandelson, 72, was briefly arrested and then released by London’s Metropolitan Police as part of their investigation.

While Prime Minister Starmer fired Mandelson as ambassador last year following more revelations about his relationship with Epstein, the British leader is facing political fallout as questions remain over his decision to appoint him to the role of ambassador in the first place.

The European Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF also said on Thursday that it was looking into Mandelson’s actions while he was serving in Brussels as British commissioner for trade between 2004 and 2008, following a request from the European Commission.