Jeffrey Epstein housed female victims in London for years after British police decided not to investigate the disgraced paedophile financier.
He had rented four flats in Kensington and Chelsea where many of his victims, including foreign nationals, had been staying after the Met decided not to investigate Virginia Giuffre‘s allegation in 2015 that she had been trafficked.
Some of these victims, six of whom have since come forward, were coerced by Epstein to recruit others into his sex trafficking operation – and were regularly moved between London and Paris via the Eurostar to see him, according to the BBC.
The corporation has reviewed millions of pages from the so-called ‘Epstein Files’ released by the US Department of Justice.
Their investigation has revealed that the paedophile’s sex trafficking scheme ‘grew more extensive than was previously known’, including housing and the international transportation of his victims – right up to his death.
At the time these crimes are alleged to have taken place, the Met said it had followed ‘reasonable lines of inquiry’.
However, the BBC reports that British police ‘missed opportunities’ to investigate Epstein in addition to the allegations Guiffre had made against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who has always denied wrongdoing.
These opportunities include a second victim, who alleged in early 2020 that Epstein had abused her in the UK – but it is not clear whether the Met acted on her claims.
Jeffrey Epstein had rented four flats in London where many of his victims had been staying after the Met Police decided not to investigate Virginia Giuffre’s allegation in 2015 that she had been trafficked
According to a document published in the Epstein Files, it was known to British authorities – the same year – that Epstein had rented one of the four flats he used to traffick his victims, who include women from Russia and Eastern Europe.
Former Met detective Kevin Hyland told the corporation: ‘People are outraged that somebody came forward and said, “I was trafficked by this man”, and yet he was just allowed to carry on. Who in the police made that decision?’
‘Epstein’s dead. But it’s clear that he wasn’t acting alone. Who else was involved and what offences could they have committed? And of course, importantly, is this still going on with others?’
Mr Hyland added that Met officers could have monitored credit cards and IP addresses of people who were booking tickets for groups of women regularly after the force received reports of Epstein’s abuse in London.
And human rights lawyer Tessa Gregory said it was ‘staggering’ that the Met had never investigated these allegations, adding that the force has a legal obligation to review these alleged crimes.
In 2019, just months before his arrest and death in jail on charges of trafficking children for sex, Epstein had been messaging a young Russian woman who at the time was staying in a London flat he was paying for.
Evidence released by the US Department of Justice shows that the paedophile sent her a photo on Skype which appears to have been a picture of himself. The victim responded jokingly by asking who the ‘good-looking’ man was.
He replied by referring to himself as her landlord but that instead of collecting rent he pays.
Pictured: Nell Gwynn House, in Sloane Avenue, Chelsea, where some of Epstein’s victims had stayed
She later asked him for money to pay for English classes, cutlery and furniture for the London flat.
The victim also asked Epstein for visa advice for a second Russian woman who was going to be staying in the flat.
Another flat had been rented between 2018 and 2019 which had a 10,000-page credit card bill attached to it, according to the Epstein Files.
A woman who was living there at the time had a card on the paedophile’s bank account with a $2,000 (£1,477) monthly allowance.
Meanwhile a fourth flat was uncovered in email exchanges between Epstein, the letting agents and a woman.
On one occassion he told a victim he would loan her the rent money for his flat, in which she stayed, and that they money needed to be repaid, unless she worked for him for six months – in which case he would ‘gift’ it to her.
In other messages with the same woman the paedophile said she was a ‘brat who has yet to accept responsibility’.
Other victims who were living in his London apartments had been coerced into working for Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. This included recruiting other women.
Pictured: Draycott Place in Chelsea, where Epstein had also rented a flat and housed victims
Between 2011 and 2019 he bought more than 50 Eurostar tickets to traffick women across the Channel. He sometimes purchased ‘youth’ tickets for travellers under 25 years old.
At least 33 of the 53 tickets were bought after Guiffre reported her abuse to the Met in 2015.
One victim was transported to London 16 days before Epstein was arrested in July 2019, the BBC found, with some of those trafficked later coming forward as victims.
In previous statements since 2016, including last year, the Met said ‘other international authorities were best placed to progress’ the allegations against the paedophile.
The force said Guiffre was interviewed three times in 2015 and 2016 and that other potential victims had been contacted.
However ‘no allegation of criminal conduct was made against any UK-based individual’.
The Met said it was working with the US and other authorities so that ‘any UK matters could be indentified’.
The National Crime Agency was also aware of accusations surrounding the paedophile, telling the FBI in a 2020 memo about sexual abuse allegations against socialite Clare Hazell, the Countess of Iveagh.
She is alleged to have flown on Epstein’s private jet more than 30 times.
However the Met had claimed no accusations had been made against Britons.
The NCA also shared intelligence with the FBI surrounding Epstein’s financial transactions the same year, which included bank payments for rent on a flat in Chelsea where his victims had stayed.
The NCA told the BBC it does not usually comment on ‘the exchange of information with international partners’, while a Met spokesperson said it was ‘fully engaged’ in the National Police Chiefs’ Council taskforce established after the DOJ’s release of the files.
They said this includes an ongoing ‘assessment of information which indicates that London airports may have been used as transit points in the facilitation of sexual exploitation and human trafficking’.
The spokesperson did not comment on the relevations related to the flats in London where Epstein had housed his victims or the Eurostar tickets used to traffick women between the UK and France.
The Daily Mail has approached the Met and National Crime Agency for further comment.