LONDON — The police in Scotland said Friday that they were investigating time spent by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, at the Balmoral estate, a favorite royal retreat.

Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, had a long friendship with Epstein and Maxwell, which continued even after Epstein was convicted in 2008 for sex crimes involving a minor.

The police investigation was first reported by The Scottish Daily Express. Scottish police said in a statement that they had “received information and active inquiries are ongoing, but these are at a very early stage.” The police added that “the needs of victim survivors” were “at the heart of those enquiries” but refused to comment further on the nature of the investigation.

Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while facing sex trafficking allegations. Maxwell, a former socialite, was convicted of sex trafficking for conspiring with Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls and women.

In February, the BBC reported that Scottish police had appealed for information after flight logs showed Mountbatten-Windsor had flown into Edinburgh on Epstein’s private jet in September 2006. The flight record, released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee in October last year, showed that Maxwell was also on the plane, which traveled from Luton, England, to Edinburgh.

Epstein was not on board during that trip, but two other passengers were on the list. The name of one is redacted and the other says simply “Crasnasky.” It remains unclear who those passengers were.

An undated photo of Epstein and Maxwell lounging on the front porch of a log cabin was released during Maxwell’s trial. The BBC determined at the time that the cabin featured in photos of the royal family at their Balmoral estate in Scotland. There had been speculation in the British press that Mountbatten-Windsor had hosted the pair at the royal residence in 1999.

The estate in the Scottish highlands was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth II, who spent time there every summer, and is now privately owned by King Charles III.

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of misconduct in public office over accusations that he had shared confidential information with Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor has denied any wrongdoing and he has not been charged.

The Thames Valley Police, which oversees policing in the area of Mountbatten-Windsor’s longtime home on the Windsor estate in southern England, said earlier this year that it was assessing a report that a woman had been taken to an address in Windsor in 2010 for sexual purposes. No charges have been filed.

Scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor’s connection to Epstein led to a protracted fall from grace for the former prince. Virginia Giuffre, who was the first victim of Epstein to waive her right to anonymity, told the Metropolitan Police in 2015 that Epstein and Maxwell had trafficked her to London in 2001 and forced her to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor when she was 17 years old. Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to Giuffre, who died by suicide in 2025.

New disclosures in 2025 about the extent of Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Epstein led to him being stripped of his royal titles and being kicked out of his longtime home in Windsor. He now lives on Charles’ Sandringham Estate.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Megan Specia/US DOJ
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