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How Jeffrey Epstein cut security deal with Israel and Côte d’Ivoire
Africa Confidential
Africa did not escape the reach of Jeffrey Epstein, the human trafficker, sex offender, financier and intelligence asset according to the three million pages of emails published by the United States Department of Justice this week.
The cache of documents indicates that one of his main operations in Africa, apart from hosting South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, was helping to broker a security deal between Israel and Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara in 2014. The agreement was the culmination of two years of negotiations that began after Ouattara claimed to have foiled an attempted coup by military officers loyal to his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo. Epstein helped Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak and former Israeli intelligence officials draw up a deal to build a Signals Intelligence system in Côte d’Ivoire – covering phone, satellite, radio and cybercafés – with data fed to the Ivorian security services. But few of the other African initiatives drawn up by Epstein and his associates, including former British cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, ever bore fruit.
Among them were plans to exploit the post-Gadaffi vacuum in Libya, and ventures in Somaliland and Senegal. Elsewhere, plans by Mandelson to get Epstein to help create a private bank to manage Congo-Brazzaville’s oil funds for President Denis Sassou-Nguesso ran aground after the official who had solicited his help cancelled a planned meeting at the last minute.
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