A preliminary check of the latest Jeffrey Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice identifies several notable appearances of Pacific Island countries.

Where Pacific Islands people or places are mentioned in the deceased convicted pedophile’s emails, they often appear in routine daily news summaries, immigration or visa advice and briefings about offshore financial services in jurisdictions including some of the Pacific’s renowned tax havens.

But amid the bland items there are communications in the files which speak more sharply to Epstein’s way of life, his influential connections and the global nature of his trafficking network.

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Tahiti is mentioned in various email exchanges involving Epstein, including with people who were actively on the look out for young females.

It features in correspondence with Jean-Luc Brunel, the late French model scout who killed himself in a French prison while awaiting trial for charges including the rape of minors.

“Who is the girl that antoine verglas shot about a month ago [sic],” Brunel asks Epstein on 14 August 2013, “Is it the girl from tahiti”?

In June that same year, the president of the New York Giants, Steve Tisch, asked Epstein about another female from Tahiti who the late pedophile wanted him to meet, enquiring whether she was a “working girl”.

Tisch has not been charged with any wrongdoing connected with Epstein.

Epstein appears to have visited French Polynesia numerous times between 2005 and 2017, sometimes staying in Bora Bora, according to bank statements released by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The files also show emails with Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, while she was in Tahiti, in 2009. Maxwell was later found guilty of grooming and trafficking girls as young as 14 years old for him and given a 20-year prison sentence in the US.

‘Fiji Water and candy’
For a time, Epstein was evidently obsessed with Fiji Water, the popular natural artesian water product sourced from Yaqara in Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu.

Bottles of Fiji Water were a common sight in Epstein’s dwellings, as one girl who was employed at an Epstein residence observed in a note book-type entry used as testimony for investigators and now shared on DOJ’s website:

“Kitchen — stacks of fiji water bottles. Woman had bikini bottoms on & had towel walk through. This is how rich people live, beautiful naked people around.”

Other files show people who managed Epstein’s household and travel were often ordering new boxes of Fiji Water — at home or on the go, Fiji Water had to be in supply.

“Principal prefers Fiji water and candy on his vehicles while being transported. Principal prefers finger food snacks with Fiji water in his jets while being transported,” advised one assistant.

Holidays in the sun
Epstein often invited people to visit, and his correspondence in the files is full of instances of him reaching out to fellow global travellers, often to find them already holidaying, in the Pacific:

“Im in santa fe, come visit,” said Epstein to someone named Reid Hoffmann who appears to be Reid Hoffmann, the founder of Linkedln, on 14 August, 2013.

“I am in Papua New Guinea mostly off grid,” Hoffman replied.

There’s a similar exchange with former Microsoft executive, Nathan Myhrvold, who replied on 28 November 2016 that he was in Rarotonga.

There is no suggestion that Hoffmann or Myhrvold are involved in any wrongdoing connected with Epstein.

Crypto and MBS
Epstein was interested in a plan announced by the Marshall Islands government in early 2018 to release its own cryptocurrency to serve as an official legal tender in the Micronesian country.

On March 1 that year he sent information about the Marshalls’ crypto plan in an email to Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist for Donald Trump during his first term as US President.

What is perhaps more interesting is the exchange in the prior emails in the thread.

“MBS coming to wash 19th,” Epstein said to Bannon in reference to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s upcoming visit to Washington DC.

Bannon was across it and replied “To have breakfast with Jared”, in apparent reference to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Then talk turned to crypto in the Marshalls.

Shipping hassles
On his behalf, Epstein’s assistants purchased some cultural artwork from Papua New Guinea.

An invoice issued in July 2012 from Wewak-based company Pacific Artefacts, and addressed to New Zealander Brice Gordon, who worked for Epstein, listed the artwork as “Kwoma Tribe Painted Bark Panels”, priced at US$6000.

But getting an export permit for the panels from the PNG National Museum proved a lengthy process, as did arranging for the shipping through PNG’s national carrier Air Niugini, according to emails from a clearly frustrated Epstein assistant whose name is redacted.

This person was familiar with Air Niugini, and found its tracking system too inefficient, as per their email from 2 July 2012.

“I have never been able to track a shipment in the ‘system’. Inwards or outwards. I send in donated medical supplies about 4 times a year to a surgeon and it has much of the same frustrating path as this one seems to be having,” he said.

Yachts and Russians
Even after he died, Epstein’s reach was felt in the Pacific, including in relation to a yacht coming to the attention of the FBI while docked in Palau.

Amid the files is an exchange between late 2021 and early 2022 involving FBI officers following a heads-up that “Epstein’s yacht is parked down here in Palau” amid “a possible effort by a Russian oligarch to use Palau as a haven for their yacht”.

“Is our chain of command interested in this information? The Palauan government I previously tried to provide us with information a couple months ago on a yacht they believe had ties to one of the spin off Jeffery Epstein cases where they also demonstrated a willingness to assist USG/DOJ in impounding the vessel.”

It is unclear if the boat — which an attaché for the FBI in Canberra noted was registered in the Marshall Islands — was ever impounded.

But it is one more Pacific connection in the DOJ’s mass collection of files which, when not redacted, shed light on a powerful abuser whose tentacles spread around the globe.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The arrest of Colombian drug lord Dairo Antonio Úsuga, known as Otoniel, has re-opened deep seated concerns about Tonga’s links with South American drug cartels.

Colombia’s most-wanted drug trafficker “Otoniel” has been captured, officials said at the weekend — a major victory for the government of the world’s top cocaine exporter.

The world is now watching whether Otoniel’s arrest will reduce smuggling of the drugs to Pacific hubs.

• READ MORE: Otoniel: Colombia’s most wanted drug lord captured

Tonga remains a hub for cocaine and methamphetamine distribution, with drugs brought in from Peru, Venezuela and Colombia. The drugs are then transhipped to Australia, New Zealand and China.

Speaker of the House Lord Fakafanua said there was growing evidence that Tonga was a key stopover on international smuggling routes, bringing drugs to Australia and New Zealand.

Tonga vs Columbia
Tonga’s Colombian connection was first exposed in 2011 when Australian police revealed that an international crime syndicate headed by Colombians allegedly bribed a former Speaker of the Tongan Parliament as part of a plot to import tonnes of cocaine into Australia.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) uncovered a global trafficking operation that allegedly used yachts to sail cocaine from South America to Tonga.

Police alleged that in 2010 the syndicate bribed the then Speaker of the Tongan Legislative Assembly, Lord Tu’ilakepa, who is now Tonga’s Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Forests and Fisheries (MAFF), to sponsor a Colombian drug boss to come to the kingdom.

The AFP said the drug boss, Obeil Antonio Zuluaga Gomez, wanted to direct an operating hub from Tonga and oversee cocaine shipments.

In August this year, Tongan police charged more than 20 people after cocaine packages washed up on beaches on Vava’u.

Police seized more than 14 kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of US$2.2 million (TOP$5 million).

RNZ reported that the cocaine packages looked similar to those that were found in Vava’u in 2012 on the wrecked yacht JeReVe.

Vava’u is regarded as a popular destination for yachties. The police believed that the cocaine was anchored there in Vava’u to hide and that locals would find it and bring it onto the land.

The drugs found in Vava’u are believed to have come from Columbia.

His Majesty’s concerns
Drugs have become a major issue in the kingdom, with Tonga’s King criticising Parliament for not doing enough.

In August, Tonga’s Parliament proposed making serious drug offences punishable with death.

The proposal would have applied the death penalty for trafficking more than five kg of Class A drugs or multiple drug offences involving minors.

Tonga retains the death penalty for murder and treason.

Drug smuggling is a problem across the Pacific, with drug seizures in French Polynesia, Fiji and the executive director of the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police network, Glyn Rowland, said recently the covid-19 pandemic had affected drug routes in the Pacific.

“Certainly, for our young people, unemployment and poverty is a challenge right now because of the pandemic and that makes them quite vulnerable to recruitment into organised crime gangs and facilitating drug movements,” Rowland said.

Republished with permission from Kaniva Tonga.