Jeffrey Epstein planned to loot Libya’s frozen funds with the complicity of international intelligence services, including the Mossad

Jeffrey Epstein was seeking access to frozen Libyan state assets through a network of former British and Israeli intelligence officials, new documents released as part of the US Department of Justice's investigation reveal.

An e-mail dated July 2011, disclosed in the latest publication of "Epstein files" by the US justice department, and sent by one of his associates, reveals plans to take advantage of the "political and economic turmoil" in Libya to identify and recover Libyan funds frozen in Western countries, which amounted to about $80 bn, including $32.4 bn in the United States.

The e-mail described the assets as "stolen and misappropriated", noting that their potential value could be three to four times that amount. The letter also argued that Libya, which is rich in oil and has a well-educated human capital, represents a strategic opportunity for financial and legal investments.

The documents describe preliminary discussions with international law firms to work on the case on a contingency fee basis, meaning that they would only be paid if they won the case. The documents also revealed that former officials of the British intelligence service MI6/ MI6 and Israel's Mossad have expressed their willingness to contribute to efforts to identify and recover the "stolen" assets.

Frozen funds still waiting to be recovered

The correspondence asserted that identifying and recovering a small portion of these funds could generate "billions of dollars" and cited projections that Libya will need to spend at least $100bn on reconstruction and economic recovery in the future.

Libya is struggling to recover the country's funds frozen in a number of Western countries under UN Security Council Resolution 1973, passed in March 2011 as part of the sanctions imposed on Muammar Gaddafi's regime during the uprising that toppled his regime.

Last year, the National Unity Government, led by Abdelhamid Dbeibeh, formed a legal committee to follow up on the file in cooperation with several countries, after it noticed lawsuits filed by some of these countries demanding to seize part of the funds under the pretext of compensating them for investments that were disrupted in Libya as a result of the ongoing wars.

The Security Council had promised at the time of the adoption of Resolution 1973 in 2011 to unfreeze the funds and hand them over to the Libyan authorities when the war ended, but the continuation of conflicts over the past years has hindered the implementation of this resolution, supporting the justifications for delaying the recovery of the funds.