EU fraud investigators have been asked to investigate Peter Mandelson’s friendship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, it was revealed today.
The European Commission has asked them to look into claims that Lord Mandelson passed the late child sex abuser information about a €500 billion bailout of the euro in 2010, when he was the UK’s commissioner in Brussels.
A commission spokesman told Politico: ‘Given the circumstances, and the significant amount of documents made available publicly, the European Commission also asked OLAF (European anti-fraud office) on 18 February to look into the matter.’
It added that the probe was ongoing.
Emails released earlier this month appeared to indicate that in 2010 Mandelson gave Epstein advance notice of the bailout.
Among the files released by the US Department of Justice is a message sent by Mandelson to Epstein in the early hours of May 9, 2010, in which he said: ‘Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout almost complete.’
Later that day a bailout was confirmed by the European Commission.
Lord Mandelson’s team has been approached for comment.
It came as bungling police made another grovelling apology today after revealing the source of a tip-off that the peer might be a flight risk.
In extraordinary developments yesterday, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was forced to make a statement confirming he had passed the information to Scotland Yard.
The intelligence sparked the dramatic arrest of the peer – who is under investigation in the UK over handing sensitive documents to Jeffrey Epstein – on Monday afternoon. Lord Mandelson has furiously denied the claim he could flee as ‘fiction’.
But Sir Lindsay publicly outed himself as the source after detectives seemingly told Lord Mandelson’s lawyers that his counterpart in the Upper House, Lord Forsyth, was behind the tip.
The Met apologised to Sir Lindsay last night for ‘inadvertently revealing information during an investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office’.
And in a statement today it said: ‘The Met has also apologised to the Speaker of the House of Lords, following the inadvertent revealing of information into allegations of misconduct in public office.’
