Zimbabwe's Mugabe latest former African leader to be mentioned in Epstein files

Zimbabwe's ex-President Robert Mugabe may have had financial ties with Jeffrey Epstein, according to the latest batch of files related to the convicted US sex offender.

In an email exchange from 2015 with Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito, the disgraced financier suggested they approach then-President Mugabe to provide Zimbabwe with a new currency after the local dollar collapsed because of hyperinflation.

FBI documents from 2017 also released had unverified testimony from a "human confidential source", who claimed Epstein was a wealth manager for Russia's President Vladimir Putin and provided the same service for Mugabe.

Being named among the Epstein files is not an indication of wrongdoing.

The BBC has asked the Mugabe family for a response.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's independence leader and long-time president, died in September 2019 aged 95 - two years after being ousted in a coup.

Epstein, a well-connected US financier and convicted sex offender, was found dead in prison by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in August 2019.

He had been convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl in Florida and completed his sentence in July 2010.

The latest tranche of files released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) show the email correspondence between Joichi "Joi" Ito and Epstein that took place five years later.

In response to the email about providing Zimbabwe with a new currency, with the subject "fertile land for exploration", Ito, whose email address is redacted, asked if Epstein was friends with Mugabe, to which he replied: "No, but can easily get his attention, zimbabwe would be a great petrie dish, its also supposed to be beautiful."

Ito resigned in September 2019 as head of MIT's Media Lab over donations the academic centre had received from Epstein.

The BBC has contacted the FBI for more information about the documents contained in the recent release of Epstein files - as the US financier would have been violating sanctions had he been Mugabe's wealth manager.

Mugabe was put under US sanctions from 2003 - and US companies and citizens were prohibited from trading or conducting financial transactions with him.

Zimbabwe and Mugabe come up in other correspondence in the Epstein files.

An email written in April 2012 suggested incorrectly that Mugabe was on his death bed in Italy.

The sender's full name and email are redacted but the message is signed off as "jonathan". He asks Epstein for possible contacts in the country, adding "they have some great companies if this guy is really done whi=h he is".

Mugabe was then 88 years old - and appeared fit and well days later on his return from Singapore to lead independence celebrations.

One of his old allies, who asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC that such inaccuracies suggested the information on Mugabe was fabricated.

Zimbabwe is still governed by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party - and struggled with inflation for decades following the abandonment of the Zimbabwean dollar in 2009.

Several attempts to introduce a new currency failed, but a gold-backed currency called the Zig, launched two years ago, has managed to stabilise the economy after a shaky start - though many people still rely on the US dollar.

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