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A man who appears to be former Prince Andrew emailed Ghislaine Maxwell asking if she had any “new inappropriate friends” for him and discussed procuring girls ahead of an official royal visit to Peru, the latest Epstein files released by the US Justice Department have revealed.
The emails will deepen controversy about the conduct of the former prince – now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – following previous claims that he had sex with Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, on three occasions when she was 17.
King Charles stripped his younger brother Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles on 30 October and forced him to leave his home near Windsor Castle in what Buckingham Palace called a “condemnation” over his conduct.
The revelations about Mountbatten-Windsor’s behavior have proved a serious embarrassment for the king as he seeks to establish himself after the 70-year rule of his mother, Elizabeth II, who died in September 2022.
The latest revelations are particularly sensitive because they suggest Mountbatten-Windsor had arranged to meet young women while traveling on business funded from the official travel budget.
The earliest of the latest emails was sent in August 2001 to Maxwell, an associate of Epstein, from someone signing as “A” saying he was at “Balmoral summer camp for the royal family.”
The British royal family visits the Balmoral estate near Aberdeen every summer. A wrote to Maxwell: “How’s LA? Have you got some new inappropriate friends for me?”
The email was sent after Giuffre later claimed that Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and Maxwell had first brought her to London in March 2001 to have sex with Andrew.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed in 2021 for her role in Epstein’s sexual abuse of girls and young women. Epstein was found dead in a prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on new sex crime charges.
Maxwell responded to the email, apparently sarcastically, saying that she was only able to find “proper friends” and offered to organize some “church meetings” for her. In a reply, the original emailer wrote that he was “upset” and mentioned that he had just left the Royal Navy. Mountbatten-Windsor left the Royal Navy in July 2001, less than three weeks before the date of the email.
The emails were exchanged before the then Prince’s official visit to Peru in March 2002.
The files contain emails exchanged between Mountbatten-Windsor, Maxwell and a man named Juan Esteban Ganoza. They include evidence that Maxwell encouraged Ganozza to find “girls” for Mountbatten-Windsor.
Ganoza responded by asking how old the person in question was and that he would “try” to find someone. The man, who appeared to be Mountbatten-Windsor, replied: “As far as girls go I leave it entirely to you and Juan Estobán (sic)!” Maxwell later wrote to Ganoza making it clear what Mountbatten-Windsor wanted.
She wrote: “Some sightseeing, some two-legged sightseeing (read intelligent enough fun and from nice families) and he’ll be very happy.”
However, Maxwell stressed the importance of keeping the visitor’s activities in Peru a secret.
She wrote: “I know I can count on you to show him a wonderful time and that you will only introduce him to friends you can trust and whom you can count on to be friendly, discreet and fun. He doesn’t want to read in the newspapers about who or what he saw on any trip.”
Neither a spokesperson for Mountbatten-Windsor nor Buckingham Palace immediately responded to a request to comment on the latest revelations.
Mountbatten-Windsor has previously denied all allegations against her and said she did not remember meeting Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year.
However, she paid him a substantial, undisclosed settlement in the US in 2022 after she took legal action against him accusing him of sexual harassment.
