Files expose alleged links between Epstein, Anil Ambani and Delhi ‘leadership’

The “leadership” in Delhi wanted American financier and sex offender Jeffery Epstein to connect businessman Anil Ambani to U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner and Republican strategist Steve Bannon, Mr. Ambani had claimed, according to messages to Epstein in March 2017, that were released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). The meetings requested were to have prepared the ground for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S. in June 2017.

The External Affairs Ministry, which denied comments by Epstein alleging he assisted on Mr. Modi’s visit to Israel in July 2017 as “trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal” on Saturday, did not respond to requests for a comment on the latest mails about the U.S. visit.

In addition, Mr. Ambani appears to have met with Epstein on May 23, 2019, at 9.25 a.m., following which Epstein messaged Mr. Bannon that he had met Prime Minister Modi’s “guy”. Epstein said that the person he met had complained that “no one in [Washington] speaks to him,” referring to Mr. Modi.

The BJP denied that the messages were in any way connected to the government. After a spat between BJP and Congress spokespersons over social media on Saturday (January 31, 2026), Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal said in a post on Sunday (February 1, 2026) that “the reports of the new batch of Epstein files are a huge wake-up call about the kind of monsters who have access to PM Modi”, demanding that the Prime Minister personally “come clean” on the issue.

Also Read | Congress demands PM Modi to come clean on ‘disclosures’ on him made in Epstein files

The messages, part of three million pages from hundreds of thousands of heavily redacted documents released by the U.S. DoJ, indicate a close relationship and regular contact between Mr. Ambani and Epstein between 2017 and 2019, until a few months before Epstein’s death in a New York prison. Mr. Ambani’s office did not respond to a detailed set of questions from The Hindu about the mails attributed to him, and The Hindu cannot independently verify whether the messages were indeed sent by Mr. Ambani.

According to a message sent on March 16, 2017, Mr. Ambani asked for assistance with meetings in the U.S. ahead of a likely visit by Mr. Modi over the summer that year. Mr. Ambani said he had been in Delhi, and that the “Leadership” would like Epstein’s help so he could meet “Jared” (Kushner) and “Steve” (Bannon), “asap” (as soon as possible). According to the chat, the two men agreed to speak directly over the telephone thereafter. However, Epstein warned that Mr. Kushner and Mr. Bannon, who were part of the newly sworn in administration of Mr. Trump during his first presidential tenure (January 2017-2021), were extremely busy, meeting “15 people a day”, and may not have been able to have a “meaningful” conversation.

Another set of messages dated March 11 indicated that Mr. Ambani had planned to meet Epstein and “Ehud”, believed to be former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, for a dinner in Paris at the time, but had to cancel the meeting as Mr. Ambani was scheduled to have dinner with French President Francois Hollande instead. Mr. Ambani had won the off-set contract during the purchase of Rafale fighter jets from France announced during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Paris in April 2015 and was part of the business delegation accompanying Mr. Modi at the time, and was understood to have met President Hollande and French officials frequently.

A number of messages discuss key figures in Washington that Epstein thinks Mr. Ambani should meet. He also asks him who the U.S. Ambassadorial nominee should be to, which Mr. Ambani suggested General (retd.) David Petraeus, while Epstein said that Ashley Tellis, the policy analyst arrested over stolen official documents last year, was in the running as U.S. Ambassador to India at the time in 2017.