Our investigations show: How Jeffrey Epstein gained access to highly sensitive military information in the shadow of the Gates Foundation

Mumbai, India — Gunfire has resumed along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Defense Minister Khawaja Asif speaks of open war. Meanwhile, our reporting exposes a network that has largely escaped scrutiny. Reviewed emails, published records, and internal correspondence show that Jeffrey Epstein — a convicted sex offender with no official mandate — gained access to highly sensitive military briefings. The material addressed Taliban power struggles, drone operations, and internal security assessments. These were not routine contacts. The documentation traces communication channels linking global philanthropy, diplomacy, and military reality. The structural question is unavoidable: How does a private actor enter that space? What kind of architecture allows itself to open to such individuals?

In the email dated March 2, 2013, Jeffrey Epstein proposed a financial model for polio eradication to Boris Nikolic. Donors would receive immediate tax advantages and reputational gain, while the money would flow to the foundation only later. The foundation would advance the funds, secured by an irrevocable guarantee from the donor. In effect, present-day polio work would be financed through future estate taxes - with, as Epstein put it, “everyone but the government winning.”

The documents suggest that between 2013 and 2018 Epstein was deeply involved in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s anti-polio initiatives in Pakistan. He did not merely broker contacts but positioned himself as a central interlocutor between the foundation and the International Peace Institute under the leadership of Terje Rød-Larsen. Terje Rød-Larsen is a Norwegian diplomat and longtime UN official who played a central role in the Oslo peace talks between Israel and the PLO in the 1990s and maintained extensive international contacts in diplomacy and security affairs. Through this structure, he received reports that went far beyond vaccination campaigns. These included confidential assessments of the security situation, Taliban negotiations and even military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Epstein outlined to Boris Nikolic, a close confidant and scientific adviser to Bill Gates, a model under which donors would benefit tax-wise while financing polio programs. The state would lose, the foundation would win - that was the logic. Just days later, he offered to personally explain the concepts and referred to Rød-Larsen, who could assist in Pakistan and Nigeria. Even at that point, Epstein was thinking strategically in political and financial categories - not only medical ones.

Particularly explosive are passages in which Epstein inquired whether the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act also applied to foundation work. He ran through scenarios in which payments to Taliban actors might serve as a means of enforcing vaccination campaigns. He asked, in essence, how one should proceed if the only way to carry out vaccinations was to “pay the bad guys.” This was not theory but operational options.

On March 6, 2013, Jeffrey Epstein wrote to Boris Nikolic and explicitly referred to Bill Gates. He outlined a scenario in which, as Gates’ engagement became more widely known, “the bad guys” might gain greater leverage over vaccination programs and asked how to proceed if vaccinations could be implemented only through payments to these actors. He also mentioned that Terje Rød-Larsen was traveling and that he intended to meet him in Paris to discuss information on Nigeria and Pakistan.in that. He asked Nikolic what he thought about it. He further noted that Terje (Rød-Larsen) had recently departed - first to Australia, then to the Middle East - and that he planned to meet him in Paris to deliver information and clarify questions regarding Nigeria and Pakistan.

In the email dated March 18, 2013, Jeffrey Epstein informed Boris Nikolic that he considered the approach correct and had instructed Terje Rød-Larsen to assemble the strongest possible team for the launch in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nigeria was not his focus and would be handled by another group. Rød-Larsen would present him with the details by the end of the week.

Nasra Hassan, a terrorism expert and longtime UN staff member, traveled to Pakistan in April 2013. Her reports to the International Peace Institute were forwarded to Epstein. In them she described conversations with Taliban representatives, assessments of the political situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas, as well as the direct impact of CIA drone strikes on negotiations. In one report she referred to the killing of Pakistani Taliban leader Wali ur Rahman and the consequences for talks with the new government. Vaccination campaigns and military operations were running in parallel - and Epstein received insight into both levels.

On April 7, 2015, Nasra Hassan sent an email marked “strictly confidential” to Terje Rød-Larsen and Andrea Pfanzelter at the International Peace Institute. In it she reported on internal deliberations of the Pakistani government regarding a covert arrangement with Saudi Arabia in connection with the Yemen conflict.

She described that Saudi Arabia had requested ground troops, military equipment and air support from Pakistan, while the Pakistani army officially rejected direct intervention. At the same time, however, work was underway on a covert solution that could enable logistical support, special forces and military cooperation, with economic interests - particularly energy and Saudi financial assistance - playing a central role.

That such internal military and diplomatic assessments reached Jeffrey Epstein through multiple channels raises a massive control problem. When a privately operating actor with a criminal history gains access to sensitive security policy considerations, the question arises who was actually controlling whom - and how porous the boundary between philanthropy, diplomacy and strategic power politics truly was.

Sensitive details also found their way into this communication. Hassan mentioned that the airport in Zhob had been used by NATO between 2009 and 2011 - a circumstance never officially confirmed by the Pakistani government. In other emails, internal considerations of the Pakistani military were discussed, including linking airstrikes in South Waziristan with vaccination measures in refugee movements. Such information clearly exceeds the framework of classic development cooperation.

On August 10, 2015, Nasra Hassan drafted an internal situation report on the situation following the death of Mullah Omar and transmitted it to Terje Rød-Larsen and Andrea Pfanzelter at the International Peace Institute. The report analyzed in detail the balance of power within the Taliban, in particular the rise of Mullah Mansur, the role of influential religious actors such as Maulana Sami ul-Haq and the significance of Sirajuddin Haqqani.

Hassan further described ongoing U.S. drone operations in FATA and Afghanistan, the active steering of the process by Pakistan’s military intelligence service ISI, security assessments of Taliban factions and strategic considerations for stabilizing President Ashraf Ghani. She also assessed the impact of the security situation on the Polio Eradication Program PEP, but made clear that the security dynamics and regional power shifts formed the central focus of the analysis.

If a report analyzing internal Taliban power struggles, ISI roles, U.S. drone operations and strategic assessments for stabilizing Afghanistan ultimately reaches the environment of Jeffrey Epstein through multiple stations, that is more than in need of explanation.

In further emails forwarded to Epstein, IPI leadership discussed “apparently negative developments” - such as stalled talks between Pakistan and the Taliban or attempts by the government to bolster a breakaway Taliban faction and position it in South Waziristan - as factors that might ultimately have “positive effects on polio.” Particularly revealing was a scenario internally discussed with the Pakistani army: organizing polio drops and vaccination arrangements precisely when tribal members fled from contested areas into “quieter” regions due to airstrikes. And on April 7, 2015, Nasra Hassan submitted a detailed report on internal Pakistani deliberations regarding cooperation with Saudi Arabia - a paper suggesting how deep her access reached into government and military circles. According to our research, these internal considerations were never reported in Pakistani media.

In June 2013 the network came under pressure when Bill Gates himself wrote directly to Imran Khan seeking support in contacting Taliban-controlled areas. Internal voices warned that this could jeopardize discreet channels. Epstein was informed of the irritations and passed along the assessments. He did not function as a peripheral figure but as a hub.

On December 10, 2013, Andrea Pfanzelter of the International Peace Institute wrote an email to Jeffrey Epstein. In it she informed him in advance - before it was publicly reported - that a religious institution recognized by the Taliban was about to publish a fatwa supporting polio and other vaccinations.

She stated that this rapprochement with Taliban-aligned clerics had been a central objective of the recent trip and that she had already received an advance copy of the declaration. Publication in the media was imminent, even though political and security problems persisted.

At the same time, the International Peace Institute was negotiating multimillion-dollar funding with the Gates Foundation. In 2013, 2.5 million dollars flowed, in 2014 another 5.5 million. An application for 25 million was on the table. The correspondence indicates that Epstein was not merely an observer but exerted influence over structure and direction.

The connection between Bill Gates and Epstein continues to burden the Microsoft co-founder. In an internal meeting, Gates acknowledged two consensual affairs of which Epstein had knowledge. He spoke of an 18-month travel restriction that had been known to him before he became involved with Epstein and admitted that he had not sufficiently vetted his background. He denied any involvement in illegal activities.

Additional information further complicates the picture. In messages from 2017, Epstein and Steve Bannon discussed strategies for how Gates’ engagement in Pakistan could be framed politically to Donald Trump. The focus, it was said in essence, should be on American interests. Global initiatives had to be sold as advantageous for the United States. Epstein subsequently wrote to Gates that he had information directly “from the horse” and would look for an uncontroversial channel.

All of this unfolded in an already fragile situation. Since the CIA in 2011 used a fake vaccination campaign to collect DNA samples in the vicinity of Osama bin Laden, polio vaccination in Pakistan has been viewed with suspicion. Doctors now warn that revelations about Epstein’s role could further fuel that mistrust. A senior physician in Sindh stated that even the mere idea of a connection between Epstein and vaccination programs unsettles parents.

Epstein himself defended his engagement in a video interview by remarking that ethics are always complicated. One should ask mothers whose children did not contract polio. The cynicism of that statement is difficult to bear today.

The documents do not portray a benefactor but a man seeking access, influence and information - in an environment where health, military and diplomacy were inseparably intertwined. That a convicted sex offender received confidential military assessments within this network raises questions that extend far beyond personal misconduct. It concerns control, transparency and the question of how much proximity between global philanthropy and geopolitical power politics is acceptable.

Parallel to his activities in the context of polio initiatives, another technically ambitious aspect emerges. As early as 2012, Jeffrey Epstein wrote in an email that the signal intelligence used by American authorities could be leveraged to “break” the genetic code. He referred to “codebreakers” from intelligence circles and asked which “agency buttons” would have to be pressed to recruit the appropriate personnel. In the same correspondence, there was discussion of applying methods from cryptanalysis to DNA and protein signal problems. This was not a loose thought experiment on the margins but documented communication.

Added to this was his engagement in digital currencies and high technology. Epstein financed early initiatives related to cryptocurrencies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and moved within the environment of MIT projects, venture capital and international technology cooperation, including contacts connected to the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Russia. In an interview with Steve Bannon, he spoke of wanting to use his estate in New Mexico as a research site to attract scientists from the Los Alamos environment after government funding for high-energy physics had been cut. He framed it as an attempt to develop tools with which minds smarter than his own could investigate the “unexplainable.”

The question of prosecution is irrelevant. It distracts. The real question is: Has anything changed? Structurally, institutionally, in a way that can be traced? The answer so far is no. A private actor - without mandate, without discernible assignment - had access to what should not have been accessible: situation assessments, internal analyses, diplomatic evaluations. That shows a system that did not function. And that system exists quietly while we sit here. Some of the individuals who managed this flow of information remain in positions where it matters. Fund directors. Network nodes. Advisers. Intermediaries. No one has transparently explained how this happened, why it happened or why it no longer happens. That is the problem. Not the names. The structure.

There is also something simple: silence. No responses to our inquiries. No information about internal review procedures. No explanation of the communication channels at the time. Nothing. That silence says more than any answer could. The pattern is clear: philanthropy meets diplomacy meets military meets private networks. In between, no visible safeguards. No control mechanisms. No chains of responsibility that function. As long as this is not disclosed - as long as it is not made comprehensible how it will be prevented in the future that sensitive security assessments again circulate outside state responsibility - the risk remains. It remains not as a distant abstraction. It remains as a present threat to the security architecture itself. This is not a historical footnote. It is a current problem.

The investigations thus reveal two lines running in parallel: on the one hand access to security-relevant situation reports in the context of global health programs, on the other the attempt to connect cryptography, intelligence methods and genome research. The correspondence is documented, the formulations are documented, his efforts to gain contacts in scientific and governmental structures are documented. What actually emerged from this remains an open question.

Our investigations will continue unabated. That is simple necessity. Yes, there is silence, there is resistance, there is effort in ways that can hardly be quantified. But we are not the first to walk this path, and we will not be the last. In each of these small steps that accumulate into steps, something happens: a trace is uncovered, a question is asked that previously went unasked. Accomplices must be held accountable, security concepts must be rethought. Few cases in recent decades have deserved more clarification than this one - not for the general archives but for the many victims, in the quiet hope that truth, when brought to light, may return a measure of peace. Perhaps not all of it. But a little. And that is where we begin.

To be continued .....