ZIMBABWE’s ex-President Robert Mugabe may have had financial ties with Jeffrey Epstein, according to the latest batch of files related to the convicted US sex offender.
In an email exchange from 2015 with Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito, the disgraced financier suggested they approach then-President Mugabe to provide Zimbabwe with a new currency after the local dollar collapsed because of hyperinflation.
FBI documents from 2017 also released had unverified testimony from a “human confidential source”, who claimed Epstein was a wealth manager for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and provided the same service for Mugabe.
Being named among the Epstein files is not an indication of wrongdoing.
The BBC has asked the Mugabe family for a response.
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s independence leader and long-time president, died in September 2019 aged 95 – two years after being ousted in a coup.
Epstein, a well-connected US financier and convicted sex offender, was found dead in prison by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in August 2019.
He had been convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl in Florida and completed his sentence in July 2010.
The latest tranche of files released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) show the email correspondence between Joichi “Joi” Ito and Epstein that took place five years later.
