Prince Andrew could become more deeply engulfed in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal as police in the US seek to talk to victims of the late American billionaire pedophile.
The Sunday Times reported the FBI has expanded its investigation to identify alleged human trafficking victims of Epstein, who could provide information on the Duke.
The Sunday Times says the US law enforcement agency expects to interview alleged trafficking victims over the next two months, and that Scotland Yard is ready to help.
Citing unidentified sources from the US Department of Justice, the paper says the FBI are looking to "several" potential victims in the hope they can provide more details about Prince Andrew and his involvement in the Epstein case.
The report quotes former head of royal protection at Scotland Yard, Dai Davies, saying a full investigation would be in Prince Andrew's best interests.
"I would have thought it's in Prince Andrew's interests to clear this matter up," Mr Davies, who headed Prince Andrew's protection in the late 1990s, told The Sunday Times.
"Any residue of doubt or innuendo should be cleared up by a clear, unequivocal, structured investigation."
Scotland Yard had previously held an investigation after one of the women caught up in the scandal, Virginia Giuffre, made allegations against Prince Andrew, but that probe was dropped in 2015.
Her allegations, which Andrew strongly denies, were struck from US civil court records in 2015 after a judge said they were "immaterial and impertinent".
The Sunday Times reports the claims by Giuffre that she was ordered to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 are not the only allegations against the royal being reviewed by the FBI.
Prince Andrew has denied all allegations against him as "false" and "without foundation".
The paper said around 100 sex-trafficking victims are expected to form part of the FBI's investigation into Epstein, most of whom were aged between 14 and 15.
The Epstein probe is continuing after the disgraced financier took his own life last month in a New York prison cell where he was detained on charges of sex trafficking teenage girls.
DuctTapeWizard on September 29th, 2019 at 12:37 UTC »
Next you'll tell me that Prince Charles knew that his close personal friend Jimmy "raped girls in an asylum" Savile was a pedophile.
black_flag_4ever on September 29th, 2019 at 11:57 UTC »
But he’s a royal so it’s not like the UK will let another country extradite him.
cmkinusn on September 29th, 2019 at 11:46 UTC »
This man is the chosen fall guy for the entire operation. Remember that he is one of literally more than a thousand of the most powerful men in the world that enjoyed Epstein's services. Yet, he is almost entirely the focus of both the media and (as far as we know) the police (including FBI). Remember that the FBI retrieved thousands of labeled tapes, yet we see no mention of this anymore.
Prince Andrew is just big enough to be considered a juicy catch for anyone desiring superficial justice, but still just one fish in a very large population that all deserve to be caught.