Paris (France) (AFP) – Ariane de Rothschild, current general director of the Swiss bank Edmond de Rothschild, was close to the American businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who became her advisor and confidant, but the documents consulted by AFP at this stage do not show exchanges evoking Mr. Epstein's behavior as a sex criminal.
Published on: 02/05/2026 - 9:41 p.m.
Ms. de Rothschild met him several times between 2013 and 2019 "in the normal course of her duties within the Edmond de Rothschild group and Mr. Epstein's financial activities", the bank told AFP, which ensures that the banker "had no knowledge of Mr. Epstein's conduct and personal behavior".
He was convicted in 2008 for using the services of underage prostitutes.
The relationship between Ariane de Rothschild and Jeffrey Epstein began on a professional level in 2013, according to email exchanges made available by the American Department of Justice. But the financier quickly occupied a preponderant place in the banker's life, becoming both her strategic advisor and a confidant on her marital difficulties with her husband Benjamin, who died in 2021.
“If I can be useful, I will be delighted. I do not expect any financial compensation,” he said in June 2013, in reference to Edmond de Rothschild, Benjamin’s father.
$25 million
Later, two contracts signed in October and November 2015 and consulted by AFP, however, committed the Edmond de Rothschild group to pay the financier, via one of its companies, a total of $25 million in thanks for his services and his interpersonal skills.
Ariane de Rothschild thus uses Epstein's network to build up an address book in the United States while heavy fines are required by American justice against 80 Swiss banks suspected of tax evasion, in the mid-2010s.
The Edmond de Rothschild bank has "a problem with the Ministry of Justice, like all the other Swiss banks. Are you prohibited from getting involved?", asked Jeffrey Epstein in 2014 to Kathy Ruemmler, an American lawyer who had just left her position as White House legal advisor to President Barack Obama.
Most of the exchanges between Jeffrey Epstein and Ariane de Rothschild undoubtedly took place in person: many emails set a time to speak on the telephone, given their different time zones, she often in Geneva or Paris, he between New York and his Caribbean island, between two excursions in Europe.
The financier's advice quickly navigates between privacy and work while Ariane de Rothschild, who took the helm of the group in 2015, runs the family business with her husband, described as a "danger" by Epstein.
"I think the first priority is to protect yourself and keep you and the girls safe. Then you need a plan to generate income. (...) Tell me how I can be most useful to you. I'm worried," wrote Jeffrey Epstein in 2016.
"Eternal vacation"
He slipped the banker the names of Ehud Barak, former Israeli Prime Minister, and Larry Summers, Minister of Finance under Bill Clinton, to join the board of directors.
There are "a few people at JPM (the JPMorgan bank, Editor's note) who are looking for CEO positions. I will seriously consider transferring Christophe (de Backer, then CEO of the group, Editor's note) as soon as possible," the financier wrote to him in October 2014.
In July 2015, Ariane de Rothschild confided to Epstein that the Swiss bank UBS “would be interested in buying our entire Swiss entity as well”. “Maybe I should sell and we’ll all go on forever vacation,” she comments.
She also seeks his advice in the legal battle between the two branches of the Rothschild family over the use of their names in business.
“Did you see David’s announcement? He was going to rename his group Rothschild & Cie,” she was indignant to the financier in 2015.
After several years of litigation, the banking groups Rothschild & Co and Edmond de Rothschild announced in 2018 that they had reached an agreement: neither can now use the Rothschild name alone.
The mere mention of a person's name in the Epstein file does not imply any a priori reprehensible act on the part of that person. But the documents made public show at the very least links between Jeffrey Epstein, or his entourage, with personalities who have often minimized, or even denied, the existence of such relationships.
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© 2026 AFP
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