Was Jeffrey Epstein a Mossad Agent Working for Israel? What secret emails Reveal

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For days, the debate in the United States has been dominated by the imminent release of the Epstein files: tens of thousands of pages of FBI and Department of Justice documents — investigative reports, internal memos, interrogation transcripts, and agent notes — most of them still classified or heavily redacted. These documents electrify public opinion because they could reconstruct twenty years of investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to politicians, billionaires, and heads of state. And if released in full, they could seriously embarrass President Trump and key figures within his inner circle, including major donors and political allies.

While America waits to see what will really emerge from these Epstein files, we want to focus on a seemingly marginal aspect that the mainstream press has completely ignored: Epstein’s secret connections with Israeli intelligence. This story does not come from future declassified documents, but from an archive already available: the private emails of Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister, and himself a former undercover operative, whose name already appeared in a previous issue of our newsletter. In 2019, Barak co-founded the spyware start-up Paragon Solutions, another detail worth keeping in mind.

In recent months, a multipart investigation published by Drop Site News has shown how Epstein allegedly spent years acting behind the scenes as an intermediary and facilitator for interests tied to Israel’s intelligence services. In other words: behind the parties, private jets, and abuse cases, there was a second, hidden role — that of an unofficial envoy for Tel Aviv in sensitive covert operations. A story that upends much of what we thought we knew about Epstein and helps explain the international upheaval behind these files.

This issue is written by Sacha and edited by Luigi.

Epstein and the Mossad: Old Suspicions, New Evidence

For years, rumors circulated about Jeffrey Epstein’s shadowy ties to the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. They were mostly conjectures, often dismissed as conspiracy theories. Yet the list of curious clues was already rather long. Before becoming the “billionaires’ financier,” Epstein had been a simple high-school math teacher at the elite Dalton School in New York, where he was hired despite not having a university degree. Then, within a few years, thanks to the recommendation of the man who would later become the firm’s CEO, he joined Bear Stearns — one of the largest investment banks in the United States — again with no MBA and no prestigious résumé behind him. There he rose through the ranks until he left the bank under circumstances that were never fully clarified, re-emerging as a private financial consultant to the ultra-rich.

In the early 1990s, he entered the orbit of apparel magnate Leslie Wexner, the Victoria’s Secret owner and a member of the so-called Mega Group, a circle of major American-Jewish donors particularly close to Israel. Wexner not only entrusted Epstein with the management of his personal investments, but granted him sweeping power of attorney over his assets and ceded to him the enormous Manhattan townhouse that would become the center of Epstein’s operations. From that moment on, Epstein’s lifestyle exploded: a private jet, a Caribbean island, the Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, and a mansion in Palm Beach. He moved into the Upper East Side townhouse that Vanity Fair once described as “the largest private residence in New York,” and flew friends and VIPs around on a Boeing 727 he owned. The real origin of that wealth remains — if not a mystery — certainly opaque.

Meanwhile, his future companion Ghislaine Maxwell entered his life — daughter of British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, long accused of having been a Mossad collaborator. After his death under mysterious circumstances in 1991, Robert Maxwell was buried with state honors in Israel. It was with Ghislaine — now in prison — that Epstein built his system for recruiting underage girls and, according to various testimonies, installed hidden cameras in the bedrooms, living rooms, and even the bathrooms of his residences.

Against this backdrop, the first theories of a large-scale honey-trap operation began circulating. The more extreme versions speculated that Epstein’s private island, jet, and multiple estates were the stage for an intelligence-run operation: luring powerful men into sexual encounters with minors, filming them secretly, and using the material to blackmail them into serving geopolitical interests. A kind of Israeli-style kompromat. In intelligence circles, the method is well-known. And one rumor added fuel to the fire: former U.S. federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who in 2008 granted Epstein an extraordinarily generous immunity deal, allegedly said he was told to “leave Epstein alone because he belonged to intelligence.” Acosta later denied ever having uttered that phrase.

On the other side, in July 2025, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett publicly declared: “The accusation that Epstein worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically false. His actions, however criminal and reprehensible, have nothing to do with the Mossad or the State of Israel.” Strong words, echoed by mainstream newspapers that dismissed any Epstein–Mossad link as conspiracy nonsense. And so the official narrative remained that of Epstein as a “lone wolf,” a serial abuser of minors with high-profile friends but no hidden handler.

Then, however, it emerged that Epstein had long-standing ties with another heavyweight of the Israeli establishment: former prime minister, former IDF chief of staff, and former defense minister Ehud Barak. According to the Wall Street Journal, Barak met Epstein dozens of times starting in 2013. Not only that. In 2015, Barak invested around $1 million in a security start-up in a deal in which, according to Haaretz, Epstein financed a substantial portion of the capital. Before that, between 2004 and 2006, the Wexner Foundation — of which Epstein was a trustee — paid Barak roughly $2.3 million for consulting work that has long prompted questions and controversy in Israel.

Photos published by the Daily Mail show Barak entering Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse with his hood pulled over his eyes — the same house where dozens of young women later said they had been abused. Barak would eventually acknowledge having met Epstein but insisted he saw him only “for business,” denying any involvement in sex parties or having ever seen underage girls in Epstein’s presence.

Today, however, a leak of 100,000 emails taken from Ehud Barak’s personal account tells a very different story — and sex has nothing to do with it.

Barak’s Emails: Epstein as Israel’s Shadow Operator

In 2024, a hacker collective known as “Handala” stole and released hundreds of emails from Ehud Barak’s personal account, exchanged between 2013 and 2016, when Barak had just left the Israeli government (the archive was reviewed by Debrief for this newsletter).

In recent weeks, the investigative outlet Drop Site News has analyzed this leak, cross-referencing it with official documents — including files released by the U.S. Congress committee investigating the Epstein case. The result is a series of investigations showing Jeffrey Epstein actively working behind the scenes to advance Israel’s strategic interests, in close coordination with Barak himself.

Drop Site revealed that Epstein was involved in multiple covert operations. In one case, at the height of the Syrian civil war, he worked to open a secret communication channel between Israel and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The goal? To explore a negotiated solution — one favored by Israel — for removing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with Moscow acting as mediator. The emails show that Epstein even managed to arrange a private meeting between Ehud Barak and Putin in the summer of 2013, to test whether Russia might support an “uneventful” transition for Assad. In practice, Barak and Epstein attempted a sort of parallel diplomacy: pressuring the United States to take a harder line on Syria while holding discreet conversations with the Russians to see if they would agree to sacrifice Assad.

Epstein, however, did not limit himself to the Middle East. According to another Drop Site investigation, he also acted as a facilitator for Israel in Asia and Africa. A batch of emails from 2012 to 2014 shows him at work in Côte d’Ivoire, in West Africa: Epstein helped Barak sell Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara an entire “state surveillance system” — essentially Israeli technology designed to monitor the phone and internet traffic of a whole nation. In one email, Epstein writes to Barak that, with “civil unrest exploding” and “the despair of those in power,” the situation was “perfect for him.” Barak replies: “You’re right in a sense. But it’s not simple to turn it into cash flow.” The logic was to transform political instability into business opportunities. In other words, Barak was also seeking personal financial returns from these crises.

Having just left the Defense Ministry, Barak had in fact reinvented himself as a “salesman” of Israeli security and intelligence services to foreign governments. Thanks to his involvement — and Epstein’s discreet assistance — Israel and Côte d’Ivoire signed an official security-cooperation agreement in 2014, which helped Ouattara consolidate a decade of authoritarian rule (surveillance of opponents, repression of protests) with the support of Israeli security firms.

The emails depict an Epstein very different from the “lone predator” portrayed by the tabloids. Here, he appears deeply integrated into high-level intelligence networks, working to advance the interests of Israel and his powerful associates. As Drop Site’s reporters write, Epstein had an extraordinary ability to “steer the superpowers toward Israel’s interests, leveraging a social network that intersected Israeli, American, and Russian intelligence communities.” In other words, he acted as a shadow operative for former prime minister Barak — who had himself once served as head of Israel’s military intelligence. And Barak, for his part, seemed to view Epstein as a valuable asset: throughout the emails he asks him for favors, advice, introductions to influential figures — exactly what one would expect from an unofficial envoy.

One exchange from May 2013 is emblematic: Barak, in the middle of the night, writes to Epstein: “Are you awake? If yes, call me.” They speak on the phone; immediately afterward Barak emails him again, urging secrecy about the conversation: “Jeff, please don’t share the info with any of our friends.”

Yoni Koren: A Military Intelligence Colonel Living at Epstein’s Home

One of the key figures to emerge from these revelations is Yoni Koren—full name Itzhak “Yoni” Koren—a senior Israeli officer, a colonel in AMAN (Israel’s military intelligence directorate), and a veteran of operations conducted in coordination with the Mossad. For years he was Ehud Barak’s shadow: chief of staff at the Ministry of Defense until 2013, trusted adviser, and intermediary in delicate missions. The leaked emails and U.S. congressional records show that Koren spent extended periods in Epstein’s Manhattan apartment on at least three occasions between 2013 and 2015. At the time, Koren was officially an officer in the reserves—but in reality still fully operational. During the first documented stay, in February 2013, he was formally serving as Barak’s “bureau chief”, handling national defense matters while sleeping under Epstein’s roof in New York.

But what was a senior Israeli intelligence officer doing in the penthouse of an American financier? During those periods in New York, Koren functioned as a bridge between U.S. and Israeli intelligence on Barak’s behalf. Though no longer in office, Barak continued to pull international strings: he used Koren as an informal emissary to send messages to AMAN and receive classified information in return. The emails show Koren verifying intelligence rumors for Barak through his contacts inside the services. In one instance, Barak asked him—via AMAN sources—to check a media report claiming that Egypt had offered parts of the Sinai to the Palestinians; Koren replied that the story was false, and Barak noted that it was the “second time” this rumor had surfaced—evidence of their constant monitoring of sensitive information.

Yoni Koren passed away in 2023 after a battle with cancer. In his obituary, Ehud Barak described him as “a talented intelligence officer […] with endless loyalty to the State.” Koren embodied the fusion of espionage, business, and politics that the Epstein case is now laying bare. And the story does not end with his death. Today, Ehud Barak, now 81, remains deeply active in the security and intelligence industry. In 2019 he co-founded the spyware start-up Paragon Solutions, together with a former commander of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite signals intelligence corps. Paragon develops advanced hacking tools and sells them to governments around the world (Italy included—Italian journalists infected with this software learned this the hard way). The company was recently acquired by a U.S. investment fund in a deal reportedly worth up to $900 million.

The Revelations —and the Media Silence

Jeffrey Epstein, then, was not just a sexual predator — he was also involved in international covert operations. Barak’s emails offer an unprecedented glimpse into how Epstein could “pull strings” on Israel’s behalf, speaking as an equal with former prime ministers, generals, and even foreign heads of state. This sheds new light on many details that once seemed merely suspicious but were never proven: the generous support from pro-Israel magnates like Leslie Wexner; Barak’s visits to Epstein’s Manhattan mansion; the multiple passports found in Epstein’s home (three American ones, plus an Austrian passport with his photo but a false name and a Saudi address).

According to several analysts, Epstein may have lured powerful men not (or not only) for personal gain, but to generate kompromat useful to some intelligence service. As other investigators have hypothesized, the impunity that shielded him for decades — until his belated arrest and his enigmatic death in a jail cell — may be explained by the fact that he “knew too much” about too many powerful people in too many countries.

And yet there is another striking aspect: the silence of the mainstream media. As FAIR’s analysis notes, even U.S. outlets that once dissected every sordid detail about Epstein have now largely ignored this story.

Drop Site, with a hint of irony, wrote: “We’re left wondering why the rest of the media, which has demonstrated no lack of excitement when it comes to the saga of Jeffrey Epstein, has all of a sudden lost its reporting capacity, in the face of reams of publicly available newsworthy documents. A question for editors reading this newsletter: What are you doing?”

Until the next Debrief,
Sacha & Luigi

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