Jeffrey Epstein’s Ties to Israel’s Ehud Barak, Peter Thiel and Russia

Hundreds of thousands of leaked emails connect convicted sex offender to presidents, titans of industry and the world’s wealthiest.

In 2008, Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor, serving an 18-month detention in Florida that allowed him to leave confinement for as long as 14 hours a day. When he emerged a convicted sex offender, he should have been radioactive. Instead, New York treated him like a bachelor to be courted.

The convicted sex offender slithered easily among the richest rooms in Manhattan. He dined with Steven and Maureen Rattner, mingled with Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and his wife Lynn Forester de Rothschild, socialized with Bill and Hillary Clinton. On long weekends he was a fixture on Martha’s Vineyard, the guest who always had another invitation waiting.

People looked the other way, ignoring the headlines, the mugshot, the plea deal. In the years that followed, Epstein used that social capital not only to rebuild his image by making massive donations to political candidates, dozens of charities, and foundations, but paid out millions to other business opportunities as well.

Some of them veered between the grotesque and the futuristic: a ranch where he would seed humanity with his DNA, and what one associate described as an effort to locate a particle that might trigger the uncanny feeling of being watched.

Peter Thiel, Leon Black, Barclays Bank’s Jes Staley, Bill Gates, President Donald Trump and many others had no problems getting into bed with the pedophile.

And then he dipped his toe into surveillance, which supports the long-bandied rumor that Epstein was into dark ops.

There is nothing definitive, but the circumstantial evidence is impossible to ignore. The picture that emerges is one of Epstein operating as more than a financier. It suggests the contours of an intelligence campaign, the kind that thrives on blackmail and proximity to power; the kind that would have made any agency, Mossad or CIA, eager to claim him — though neither has to this day save Alexander Acosta’s offhand remark that his 2008 “sweetheart deal” had been based on connections to intelligence.

Former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe said in 2020 that Robert Maxwell and Epstein both worked for Israel. He called their activities blackmail operations. Epstein’s visible ties reinforced the claim, including his relationship with former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his ties to billionaire Les Wexner, whose philanthropy advances a global Zionist agenda. The constellation of his network speaks for itself: Billionaires, political leaders, royalty.

He also maintained a social circle packed with Israeli figures of influence.

In August 2025, a leak put new weight on that scale. More than 100,000 purported emails from Barak’s inbox, stolen by the hacker group Handala and published by DDoSecrets, have been made public. The messages, written between 2007 and 2016, tell a story discrediting Barak’s public denials to Epstein’s crimes and sex offender status and so much more.

The leaked emails show Epstein pressing Barak for introductions, maneuvering toward the billionaires of Silicon Valley and the oligarchs of Moscow. They show him trying to be the one who held the keys.

By 2015, Epstein partnered with Barak to back a startup called Reporty Homeland Security, later renamed Carbyne. Officially, it was pitched as a way to overhaul 911 emergency dispatch. Unofficially, it was a gateway to the overlapping worlds of private capital and state intelligence.

The cache also shows Epstein inserting himself into the surveillance industry, using his relationship with Barak to connect with investors like Peter Thiel and Russian oligarchs like Viktor Vekselberg. There is even a 2016 dinner invitation from Epstein to Barak. The guest list included Woody Allen.

Handala, the group behind the hack, is suspected of ties to Iranian intelligence. The context of the leak is political. The content, however, is personal.

Barak said in 2019 that he had ended his relationship with Epstein once he learned of the allegations. The emails contradict that account. They suggest a longer, deeper connection, one that raises uncomfortable questions about what Barak knew and when he knew it.

The emails further show Barak was made aware of Epstein’s sexual crimes earlier than he admitted. In 2011 an assistant forwarded him articles about Virginia Giuffre’s accusations. The correspondence shows continued dealings long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.

The emails also confirm what many suspected: Barak made visits to Little St. James. In 2014, he wrote of trying to avoid having his security detail on the island, which he later praised as “impressive.”

In a sworn deposition, Viriginia Giuffre stated that Epstein trafficked her to Barak.

Barak has denied these allegations.

In May 2014, Epstein told Barak to spend “real time” with Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, the surveillance contractor. Barak, in a separate email to another associate, described it as a “first date.” He speculated that Thiel would not even remember their earlier encounter at Davos. He did not mention Epstein’s role.

Two years later Epstein pitched Reporty to Valar Ventures, one of Thiel’s funds. A polite rejection came back, calling the proposal premature. By 2018, Thiel’s Founders Fund had invested in Carbyne’s $15 million Series B round. Epstein was absent by then, but the connections he sought had materialized.

The emails also document Epstein’s attempts to broker himself into Russia. He introduced Barak to Sergey Belyakov, a former deputy minister. In one message he urged Barak to tell Putin’s advisors that Epstein was not political, only concerned with markets and currencies in a world of zero interest rates.

Epstein tracked the movements of Viktor Vekselberg, the oligarch close to Putin. Barak referred to him simply as “VV.” At the same time, Epstein pushed Barak toward a data-analysis company called Fifth Dimension. Its promotional slides promised to turn surveillance feeds into “actionable intelligence.” The company dissolved in 2018 after U.S. sanctions were imposed on Vekselberg who was also implicated in the 2016 election interference and reportedly made a series of payments upwards of $500,000 to the Trump campaign.

There is a rhythm to the correspondence. Epstein forwarding articles about cyber warfare and Russian nanotechnology. Epstein noting the ways military thinking had colonized the private sector. Epstein musing on strategy.

And running beneath it all, a reminder of what had already been known about him. In 2011, an assistant forwarded Barak news stories about Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most vocal accusers. The emails show that Barak had access to her allegations years before he later claimed awareness.

Reporty itself was founded by veterans of Unit 8200, the Israeli signals-intelligence agency. Pinchas Buchris, one of its cofounders, once directed the unit. When Epstein’s involvement surfaced in 2019, Buchris insisted that Barak had brought the money alone. The emails tell another version: Barak arranging a virtual meeting between the three men, and instructing his lawyer to revise investment terms based on Buchris’s advice.

By 2016, Epstein was eyeing another Israeli firm, Levitection, a radar-imaging startup. Barak offered to use the “same construct” as Reporty. Epstein agreed. Levitection would later collapse, but its technology found echoes in other ventures.

The correspondence is littered with fragments that feel like notes from another century:

• Prince Andrew tipping Epstein to Chinese investors interested in personal protection companies.

• Epstein relaying the offer to Barak in his usual clipped, unpunctuated style: wealthy Chinese looking for to start personal protection company in Beijing, kidnapping has begun.

And still, back in Manhattan, the invitations kept coming. Epstein was seen on the Vineyard with familiar names, photographed at dinners, tolerated if not embraced. It is this contrast — the surveillance deals conducted in secret, the social rehabilitation carried out in plain sight — that makes the emails more than correspondence. They are a record of how far he was allowed to go because no one wanted to exile him.

When Epstein was re-arrested in 2019, Barak moved quickly to dissolve his investment ties. He told reporters that he had simply seen a business opportunity, that Epstein had once seemed like an intelligent man with a wide range of interests. Thiel, in his own careful way, later admitted he had met with Epstein in 2014 but claimed not to have thought much about Epstein’s motives.

The emails suggest something more deliberate. They show a man intent on making himself indispensable at the intersection of money, politics, and surveillance.

Remembering the Accuser

Virginia Giuffre

Virginia Giuffre was still a teenager when Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pulled her into their world. She would later describe years of abuse, trafficking, and betrayal. For years she was dismissed, ignored, or discredited by the very institutions that should have protected her.

And yet she refused to stay silent. Giuffre became one of the first and most vocal survivors to publicly name Epstein and the men in his orbit. Her accusations reached across borders, from Palm Beach to London to the Caribbean. She took on Prince Andrew, forcing one of the most powerful royal families in the world to answer to her claims. He denied wrongdoing but settled her civil lawsuit in 2022.

The leaked emails show that her voice echoed in real time. In 2011, long before Epstein’s empire began to crumble, Barak’s assistant forwarded him articles about her allegations. The warnings were there. He could not say he hadn’t heard her name.

Giuffre’s bravery has reshaped the narrative. She has reminded the world that behind every spreadsheet, every leaked email, every billionaire’s dinner, there are human beings whose lives were shattered. She stood up, when it was easier not to. And in doing so, she helped crack the facade of one of the most powerful and well-connected predators of the modern age.

Epstein believed secrets were currency. Giuffre proved that telling them could be an act of liberation.

Timeline: Epstein, Barak, and the Surveillance Years

2008

Epstein pleads guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Serves a little over a year in detention. Begins looking for new ventures.

2011

Barak receives news articles detailing Virginia Giuffre’s accusations against Epstein. Later claims he was unaware until 2019.

2014

Epstein presses Barak to “spend real time” with Peter Thiel. Proposes a dinner introduction. Barak describes it privately as a “first date.”

2014 (December)

Barak arranges a virtual meeting with Epstein and Pinchas Buchris, the former director of Unit 8200 and cofounder of Reporty.

2015 (April)

Epstein suggests Barak tell Putin’s advisors he is “not political.” Connects Barak to Russian deputy minister Sergey Belyakov.

2015 (May)

Epstein and Barak discuss opportunities with Viktor Vekselberg, Putin ally and backer of Fifth Dimension, a surveillance startup.

2015 (Spring)

Reporty Homeland Security, with Epstein’s concealed investment, begins to take shape. Later renamed Carbyne.

2016 (February)

Epstein pitches Reporty to Valar Ventures, co-founded by Peter Thiel. The fund declines, calling the project premature.

2016 (April)

Barak asks Epstein to consider investing in Levitection, a radar startup staffed by Israeli defense veterans. Epstein agrees to “the same construct” as Reporty.

2018

Founders Fund, co-founded by Thiel, invests $15 million in Carbyne. Fifth Dimension shuts down under U.S. sanctions on Vekselberg.

2019 (July)

Epstein is re-arrested on federal sex trafficking charges. Barak cuts ties, claiming he had seen only a business opportunity.

When Epstein was re-arrested in 2019, Barak moved quickly to dissolve his investment ties. He told reporters that he had simply seen a business opportunity, that Epstein had once seemed like an intelligent man with a wide range of interests. Peter Thiel, in his own careful way, later admitted he had met with Epstein in 2014 but claimed not to have thought much about Epstein’s motives.

The emails suggest something more deliberate. They show a man intent on making himself indispensable at the intersection of money, politics, and surveillance. A man who had already built his empire on secrets, now looking to monetize the very machinery of secrecy.

The Leaktivists

Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets)

The story of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails does not exist without the people who pried them into daylight. Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) is a nonprofit collective founded in 2018 by journalist-activist Emma Best and Thomas White, once an administrator of Silk Road 2.0. Their mission is radical transparency. Their reputation is that of a successor to WikiLeaks.

Thomas White exited DDoSecrets in April 2019 and has not been involved with the project since, according to a statement.

DDoSecrets became a household name in June 2020 with BlueLeaks, a massive dump of internal police documents from across the United States. The timing was combustible: nationwide protests over George Floyd’s murder, police departments already under scrutiny, and suddenly millions of internal files online.

Twitter, then still Twitter, responded by banning DDoSecrets outright, citing its prohibition on “distribution of hacked material.” It was a neat corporate rationale, but it missed the point. The ban wasn’t about the how, it was about the what: evidence of systemic misconduct at a moment when the streets were on fire.

Since then, DDoSecrets has continued to publish with unnerving regularity. Data scraped from Parler and Gab in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. Financial documents from Cyprus showing how oligarch money snakes through shell companies. Oath Keepers membership rolls that triggered state-level investigations in New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.

Russian government leaks during the Ukraine war. Each release felt like the digital equivalent of breaking into a locked filing cabinet and leaving the drawers open for the world to see.

Governments have responded with predictable hostility.

• The Department of Homeland Security listed DDoSecrets alongside terrorist groups and hostile states as a “significant threat.”

• German authorities seized its servers at Washington’s request.

• Russia, Indonesia, and other nations have blocked access altogether.

And yet, in a strange twist, the IRS granted DDoSecrets nonprofit status in 2020, acknowledging it as a public-interest publisher even as intelligence agencies branded it dangerous.

The collective has matured. Today it works with mainstream institutions like Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Some leaks are released publicly, but others are restricted to vetted journalists and researchers. The point, they say, is not to burn down the system but to expose what the system works so hard to bury.

Its critics call it reckless. Its defenders call it essential. What’s clear is this: in the absence of DDoSecrets, Epstein’s emails would still be sitting in the dark corners of a former prime minister’s inbox.

Fast Facts: DDoSecrets

Founded: 2018

Founders: Emma Best (investigative journalist, transparency activist) and Thomas White (former Silk Road 2.0 administrator)

Mission: Radical transparency; to act as a “publisher of last resort” for leaks and censored information

Famous Leaks:

• BlueLeaks (2020): 270 GB of U.S. police documents, published amid George Floyd protests

• Parler data scrape (2021) following January 6 insurrection

• Gab leak (2021) exposing far-right networks

• Russian government files during the Ukraine war (2022–)

• Cyprus Confidential (2023) with international media partners

Government Response:

• 2020: DHS labels DDoSecrets a “significant threat” alongside terrorist groups

• 2020: Twitter bans the group for “distribution of hacked material” after BlueLeaks

• 2020: German police seize a public server at U.S. request

• 2020: IRS recognizes the group as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

• 2023–24: Website blocked in Russia and Indonesia; continued censorship battles

Reputation: Described by Wired as a “transparency collective,” by VICE as “the most influential leaking organization on the internet.”