The head of the Metropolitan Police, also known as Scotland Yard, has expressed willingness to help authorities in the U.S. regarding the sex trafficking cases of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. Their names are closely linked to Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Commissioner Cressida Dick said that she has no problems helping the U.S. in their investigations about Prince Andrew's links to these cases. However, the chief said that the ongoing trial's "locus and focus" is in the U.S. and the Americans have not asked Scotland Yard yet.
U.S. prosecutors apparently want to question the Duke of York about what he knows of Epstein and Maxwell's sex trafficking activities. Prince Andrew said that he was willing to cooperate in a national interview with BBC but federal agents are reportedly having a hard time reaching out to the royal.
Both U.S. prosecutors and the FBI said that Prince Andrew has had "zero cooperation." The Duke of York's legal team said that they have offered assistance three times. Yet if Prince Andrew doesn't voluntarily grant the U.S. prosecutors' request for an interview, they can file for a mutual legal assistance request, where a court in the U.K. may compel the royal to answer questions.
Maxwell has been in the custody of New York authorities since her arrest on July 2. She has been detained without bail and is facing charges of enticing minors and perjury, aside from sex trafficking. Epstein, her billionaire boyfriend, was arrested in 2019 but he died by suicide during that summer.
U.S. authorities have been interested in talking to the Duke of York ever since one of Epstein and Maxwell's accusers, Virginia Giuffre, said that she had sexual relations with the royal three times when she was a minor. Prince Andrew, however, has categorically denied knowing Giuffre.
Meanwhile, Epstein apparently ordered his sex slaves to bed Prince Andrew because he needed something from the royal. One accuser, Lisa Phillips, said in the Netflix documentary, Surviving Jeffrey Epstein, that this was a specific instruction from the pedophile and it was corroborated by Giuffre.
Former friends of Epstein also claimed that his house in Manhattan, where Prince Andrew often stayed if he's in New York, had secret cameras in the rooms. Epstein apparently wanted to film his guests in compromising situations. A former friend of the billionaire said that Epstein used these videos to manipulate, not just the young men, but also the wealthy men he's associated with.
