A trove of emails released on Friday finally confirmed one of the biggest secrets in recent British politics, which the FT was first told about last September but had hitherto been unable to print.
The emails proved that in 2009 and 2010 Reinaldo Avila da Silva, the Brazilian partner of Lord Peter Mandelson, was taking regular undisclosed payments of thousands of pounds from Jeffrey Epstein, even after the disgraced American financier had been jailed for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in July 2008.
At the time Mandelson wielded huge political power not only as business secretary but also de facto deputy prime minister in the ailing administration of premier Gordon Brown.
One email from September 2009 shows Da Silva asking for £10,000 from Epstein to fund an osteopathy course and other related expenses. “I will wire your loan amount immediated’y [sic],” the financier replied. Then in April 2010 da Silva messaged Epstein again, sharing his bank details, after which the financier forwarded the email to his accountant saying “send 13k dollars”.
In later correspondence Epstein told his accountant to “send 2k per month to reinaldo”, although when asked if this was on top of the $13,000, replied: “After rethinkoing [sic] send 4000 dollars only.”
The emails also suggest that Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein bled into his day-to-day work as business secretary.
On November 5 2009 Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chair of Dubai-based ports company DP World, sent a letter to Mandelson demanding either guarantees or loans to help finance the company’s “London Gateway” port project. Just beforehand, the sultan wrote to Epstein saying: “Dear Jeffrey I am sending this to Peter in the next 20 mnts.”
On April 1 2010 Mandelson forwarded a memo to Epstein summarising a meeting he had had about banking reforms with Lawrence Summers, head of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council.
Mandelson left politics after Labour’s election defeat in May 2010, building up a successful consultancy called Global Counsel. He married Da Silva in 2023 after three decades together.
He re-emerged as a political powerbroker early last year when Sir Keir Starmer appointed him as ambassador to Washington. But he was sacked in September after new emails showed his proximity to Epstein, with whom he remained friends even after his criminal conviction and 18-month jail sentence.
The embarrassing messages included a 50th birthday book for Epstein in which the Labour peer called him his “best pal” and expressed his “love” as Epstein faced jail for soliciting prostitution from an underage teenager.
At the time Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, pleaded with the prime minister not to sack Mandelson, one of his political mentors. Mandelson once said of McSweeney: “I don’t know who and how and when he was invented, but whoever it was . . . they will find their place in heaven.”
Like other power brokers ranging from Bill Clinton to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former banking executive Jes Staley, Mandelson enjoyed generous hospitality from the disgraced financier, who killed himself in prison in 2019.
In September the FT reported that Mandelson did not disclose in the House of Commons register two flights he took at Epstein’s expense in 2003 worth a total of $7,486.
But only now is it demonstrably clear that payments were flowing from Epstein into the bank account of da Silva.
Shortly after Starmer sacked Mandelson in 2025 the FT received information that Da Silva had taken regular large payments from Epstein.
One person close to Mandelson insisted that Epstein and Da Silva barely knew each other and did not even like each other. “No he did not receive £10,000 a month from Jeffrey Epstein for two years,” they said.
Asked, for the avoidance of doubt, whether Da Silva had taken any payments of any size at any time from Epstein, they declined to offer any denial. But they insisted that Mandelson was not “directly or indirectly” a financial beneficiary of Epstein’s.
The FT delivered a letter to the couple’s luxury £13mn house in Regent’s Park setting out the allegations and asking how much money da Silva had taken from Epstein, over what period and for what purpose.
The Brazilian never replied.
It took four months before proof emerged. On Friday afternoon the US Department of Justice released a vast cache of documents, including evidence gathered during multiple criminal and civil investigations into the convicted sex offender and his associates.
Within minutes of the release, the FT found multiple mentions of da Silva.
The emails demonstrated that da Silva had taken large sums, in various payments, from Epstein. They suggested that the cash was to help the Brazilian fulfil his dream of becoming an osteopath, and that payments were made in 2009 and 2010.
The documents do not show the total amount of money that Mandelson’s now-husband took from the disgraced financier, or the specific start and finish dates for the payments.
In 2023 the peer’s spokesman had told the FT: “He [Mandelson] never had any kind of professional or business relationship with Epstein in any form.”
That was in response to an FT scoop that a private JPMorgan report had found emails suggesting that Mandelson stayed in Epstein’s $77mn Manhattan townhouse in 2009 while Epstein was in jail.
Yet Friday’s emails showed thousands of dollars flowing from Epstein to Mandelson’s partner.
Around the same time, one email forwarded to Epstein showed da Silva discussing the potential purchase of a four-bed property in Mallorca, Brazil. In another, Mandelson asked Epstein for advice on how to lower the tax on buying a flat in Brazil for his partner.
The messages also show a warmth between the three men which belies Mandelson’s previous claims to have been far from close to Epstein. In May 2010 Epstein wrote to Reinaldo saying he felt privileged to have been able to help him. da Silva replied thanking “my friend”.
Another jokey redacted email that appears to be from Mandelson in October 2010 asked Epstein: “Have you permanently stopped the reinaldo sub?! I may have to put him out to work on the streets.”
The emails appear to be the final nail in the political coffin of the former statesman who had survived several major scandals — all involving his proximity to super wealthy financiers. And they raise fresh questions about the judgment of Starmer, who appointed Mandelson to the Washington role despite knowing about his friendship with Epstein.
Asked about the documents, the former ambassador reissued an old statement that did not address any questions about the payments to his partner. Instead, he said he was sorry to have believed Epstein and continued an association with him after his conviction.
“I apologise unequivocally for doing so to the women and girls who suffered,” the statement said.
Questions are now likely to turn to whether Epstein ever benefited — directly or indirectly — from his close friendship with a man who was one of the most powerful politicians in Europe.
At the time, one of Epstein’s closest allies was Jes Staley, former head of private client banking for JPMorgan, America’s largest investment bank. An email released by JPMorgan from 2009 showed Epstein inviting Staley to meet Mandelson in Manhattan with his chief executive, Jamie Dimon.
Other documents one year later show Mandelson and Epstein scheduling a dinner at Epstein’s 71st Street mansion at 7.30pm on March 2 2010. Epstein also met Ben Wegg-Prosser, Mandelson’s special adviser — and later co-founder of his advisory firm Global Counsel — earlier that day.
Obama, then US president, had pledged to challenge Wall Street with new “Volcker” rules to stop US banks taking excessive risks.
The next day Mandelson panned Obama’s plans, saying they would be “too difficult” to achieve. In a speech at New York University he criticised the US for proposing unilateral banking reforms without conferring with other G20 nations.
A couple of weeks later the business secretary forwarded a memo summarising a meeting with Summers over the Volcker proposals to Epstein.
On Friday night some Labour MPs said Starmer needed to throw Mandelson out of the party and remove his whip in the House of Lords. “Mandelson’s peerage should now be stripped. This is unbelievable. And I think this will become a hot topic in any future leadership hustings,” said one MP. “It should be an unambiguous litmus test for them all.”
Downing Street and the Labour Party both refused to comment. One official said Mandelson had taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords and was therefore not technically a Labour peer at present. “Membership of our whip for someone on leave of absence only becomes an issue when/if they apply to return to the House,” they said.
But another MP said: “It’s time he was suspended, put on a disciplinary and then expelled.”