Police Scotland has launched an investigation into trips to Balmoral Castle involving Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, including claims that women were trafficked to the royal estate in the Highlands.
The development follows a February appeal for information after the Epstein Files revealed that the former Prince and Maxwell had flown into Edinburgh airport on the late financier's private jet in September 2006. Detectives are now examining the allegations, with a force spokesperson saying that "active enquiries" are at a "very early stage" and are "ongoing".
Email from Balmoral and flight logs
Documents released last year by the US Department of Justice from its investigation into Epstein showed an email sent from someone named 'A' at Balmoral to Maxwell on August 16, 2001. The message read: "I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family. How's LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends? Let me know when you are coming over as I am free from 25th August until 2nd Sept and want to go somewhere hot and sunny with some fun people before having to put my nose firmly to the grindstone for the Fall. Any ideas gratefully received! See ya A xxx"
Flight logs from Epstein's private jet, also included in the files, showed that Andrew and Maxwell flew from Luton to Edinburgh on September 1, 2006. Two other passengers were on board, with one not identified and the other named only as 'Crasnasky'. Epstein was not on the flight, according to the log, having been charged with a sex offence in Florida at the time, a case that ended in a plea deal resulting in an 18-month jail sentence for soliciting sex from minors.
Photograph and weekend visit
The 2006 trip was the subject of a Police Scotland appeal in February, when a spokesperson said: "We would be keen to speak to anyone with information." An infamous photograph from 1999 showed Maxwell and Epstein lounging arm-in-arm at one of Balmoral's royal cabins, believed to be the 'Honka hut' in the Ballochbuie Forest, and the pair are understood to have been invited to the Highlands by the former Duke of York for a weekend break.
In 2019, shortly after Epstein's death, a young woman who reportedly attended the weekend with Epstein, Maxwell and Andrew claimed she had stayed overnight on the Balmoral estate. Recalling the visit, she told the Daily Mail: "He was really nice. He was very polite. [He had his] guard up."
Prosecutors later used the photograph during Maxwell's sex-trafficking trial to demonstrate her close relationship with Epstein, countering her defence lawyers' claims that she was merely his employee. Andrew has long denied any wrongdoing in his friendship with Epstein, while Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in the US after being found guilty of sex trafficking in 2021.
