A whiff of espionage around the Epstein files points to how intelligence and influence interact

February 13, 2026 – 3:30 PM

Late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appears with a woman, whose identity has been obscured, in this image from the Epstein estate released by House Oversight Committee Democrats in Washington, D.C., U.S., on December 18, 2025. (House Oversight Committee Democrats/Handout via Reuters)

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Epstein papers

have

thrown up speculation

Epstein is now better known for his sex trafficking network and Maxwell for stealing from his employees’ pension funds. But their examples point to how intelligence, high finance and influence work.

Generally speaking there are three main classes of people involved in state intelligence gathering. “Officers” are full-time employees of

state intelligence agencies such as MI6

. They run their groups of

“agents”

, who are not formally employed by the state but who deliberately and knowingly gather intelligence and perform tasks for intelligence officers. And there are what is known as

“intelligencers” (or sometimes assets)

who may not even know they are providing information to a spy agency.

The currency of human intelligence is access, knowledge and often the ability to compromise officials and influential people.

We often think that intelligence agencies and their agent runners

seek to directly recruit people

with the access and motivation to pass on state secrets. While this is undeniably the case – and the examples of the American

Aldrich Ames

and the Briton

Melita Norwood

provide good evidence of this – intelligence agencies are equally interested in recruiting what’s known as “access agents”.

Access agents

The value of an

access agent

Intelligence officers and their operatives require funding, mobility and a credible

back story

, sometimes

academics

It’s worth remembering that Kim Philby, the most notorious of the Cambridge spy ring, cut his teeth as a reporter in Spain during the civil war, before embarking on a career as an MI6 officer (and Soviet double agent). Australian journalist,

Richard Hughes

– who appeared lightly disguised in novels by Ian Fleming and John le Carre – was believed by many to be an agent for British intelligence, working in southeast Asia during the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.

Cyril Bertram Mills

Garbo

, one of the most successful double agents, who was instrumental in convincing Germany that the D-Day landings would be in Calais, not Normandy.

access agent

is trained “to be the friend the informant doesn’t have”. They can provide what their contact needs and cannot get hold of: whether that’s useful inside information of some kind, an introduction to someone important, a sexual partner or finance for one of their ventures.

MI5 is quite open about this

on its website

: “Agents operate by exploiting trusted relationships and positions to obtain sensitive information. They may also look for vulnerabilities among those handling secrets.

Secrets and lies

Determining truth in intelligence is complicated. Very rarely do we see a single piece of incontrovertible evidence that proves someone’s intelligence status or the ethics or efficacy of their actions. But then as we know, all of this is shrouded in secrecy and supposition.

In Maxwell’s case,

historical scholarship

TV documentaries

have provided unverified hints. In Epstein’s we have indicators such as the claim by former US attorney,

Alexander Acosta

Robert Dover

, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty,

University of Hull.

The Conversation

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