Scottish detectives are investigating time that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell spent at Balmoral, King Charles’ private estate in Scotland.
Police Scotland said it had received “information” and that inquiries into the disgraced royal’s time there with the late child sex offender were at a “very early stage," reported The Guardian.
The Daily Express has reported that the inquiries relate to claims that women were trafficked to the estate.
“We have received information and active inquiries are ongoing, but these are at a very early stage,” a Police Scotland spokesperson said. “All inquiries are evidence-led, with the needs of victim survivors at the heart of those inquiries.”
Photos previously released by the U.S. Department of Justice appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein on a shooting trip at Balmoral.
The estate also appears in a string of cryptic emails released last year as part of the Epstein files. In August 2001, someone using the name “the Invisible Man” sent four emails to Maxwell, who has since been convicted of sex trafficking. In one, the sender said their “valet” had recently died and that they had “left the RN,” shorthand for the Royal Navy. Mountbatten-Windsor left the Royal Navy the month before.
Another email from the same sender, dated Aug. 16, 2001, said they were at “Balmoral summer camp for the royal family” before asking Maxwell: “Have you found me some inappropriate friends?”
In March 2002, Maxwell wrote to the Invisible Man that she had passed along a message to an unnamed person, beginning: “I just gave Andrew your telephone no.” She added that “Andrew” would be “very happy” if the person did some “two legged sight seeing.”
The sender of the emails has not been confirmed.
Several other British police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, Thames Valley Police and Surrey Police, have live investigations linked to the Epstein files. The National Police Chiefs’ Council said there is no national investigation at present.
Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations that he shared sensitive information with Epstein while serving as a U.K. trade envoy. He denies wrongdoing, and that investigation continues.