New documents reveal convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein served as a power broker connecting Indian business and political elites to U.S. and Israeli leadership.
On March 16, 2017, Anil Ambani—younger brother of Asia's richest man and chairman of the Reliance Group—texted Epstein with an urgent request: "Leadership would like your help for me to meet jared and bannon asap." The message came after Ambani visited Delhi, according to documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice on January 30, 2026.
The text referred to Jared Kushner, then-President Trump's son-in-law, and Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist. Two months later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet Trump for the first time. By July 2017, Modi made history as the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.
A Pattern of High-Level Access
The documents, reported by Drop Site News, show Epstein wasn't a passive intermediary. In March 2017, he arranged introductions between Ambani and Israeli leaders, including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. He facilitated meetings with NATO leadership and Chicago billionaire Tom Pritzker.
After Modi's Israel visit, Epstein wrote that Modi "danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president." The phrase captures what the documents suggest: a carefully orchestrated diplomatic performance with Epstein pulling strings backstage.
The financier's involvement with Indian power networks stretched back years. Starting in 2014, he helped connect Modi's government to Silicon Valley executives. In 2019, following Modi's re-election, Epstein arranged meetings between Ambani and Bannon.
Questions About Access and Influence
A billion people aren't a statistic—they're a billion stories. But when decisions affecting 1.4 billion Indians are made through channels involving a convicted criminal, those billion stories deserve answers.
What exactly did Epstein offer that India's diplomatic establishment couldn't provide through official channels? Why did a businessman need a sex trafficker to reach American officials his government already had relationships with?
India's Ministry of External Affairs dismissed the revelations as "trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt." But the documents aren't Epstein's ruminations—they're his text messages and emails, including communications from Ambani himself.
The Ambani Family's Political Footprint
The Ambani family has long been central to Indian politics and business. Mukesh Ambani, Anil's older brother, leads Reliance Industries—India's largest private company. Their father, Dhirubhai Ambani, built an empire with legendary political connections across party lines.
Anil Ambani's business fortunes have fluctuated dramatically. Once worth $42 billion in 2008, he declared himself "bankrupt" in a London court in 2020. His companies have faced scrutiny over defense contracts and telecom deals that critics allege benefited from political proximity.
The Epstein documents add a troubling dimension: Were informal power networks—including a convicted sex offender—shaping India's foreign policy?
Implications for India's Strategic Autonomy
India prides itself on strategic autonomy—the ability to pursue its interests independent of great power pressure. Modi's simultaneous courtship of the U.S. and Russia, his balancing act between Washington and Beijing, reflects this doctrine.
But autonomy requires transparency about who influences policy. When a businessman texts a criminal to arrange access for "Leadership," and that criminal brags about shaping a prime minister's foreign visits, India's autonomy looks less like strategy and more like oligarchy.
The documents don't prove criminal wrongdoing by Indian officials. They do prove something almost as concerning: At the highest levels of Indian power, access to American and Israeli leadership was mediated through Jeffrey Epstein's phone.
For a democracy of 1.4 billion people, that's not a rumination. That's a scandal.
