Anil Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. File | Photo credit: Reuters
“The leadership” in Delhi wanted US financier and sex offender Jeffery Epstein to connect businessman Anil Ambani with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and Republican strategist Steve Bannon, Mr Ambani alleged, according to a March 2017 memo to Epstein released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The requested meetings were to pave the way for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in June 2017.
The Foreign Office, which dismissed Epstein’s comments about assisting Mr Modi’s visit to Israel on a Saturday in July 2017 as the “disgusting musings of a convicted criminal”, did not respond to requests for comment on the latest emails about the US visit.
In addition, Mr Ambani appears to have met Epstein on May 23, 2019 at 9.25am, after which Epstein texted Mr Bannon that he had met PM Modi’s “guy”. Epstein said the person he met complained that “no one in (Washington) is talking to him,” referring to Mr. Modi.
The BJP denied that the reports were in any way linked to the government. After a rift between BJP and Congress spokesmen over social media on Saturday (31 January 2026), Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal said in a post on Sunday (1 February 2026) that “the news of the new batch of Epstein files is a huge wake-up call about the kind of monsters that have access to the PM Modi issue,” demanding access to PM Modi personally.
Also read | The Congress demands that PM Modi clarify the “insights” made about him in the Epstein files
The reports, which are part of three million pages of hundreds of thousands of heavily redacted documents released by the US Department of Justice, indicate a close relationship and regular contact between Mr Ambani and Epstein between 2017 and 2019, up to a few months before Epstein’s death in a New York prison. Mr. Ambani’s office did not respond to a detailed set of questions from The Hindu about the emails attributed to him, and The Hindu cannot independently verify whether Mr. Ambani actually sent the messages.
According to a report sent on March 16, 2017, Mr Ambani asked for help with meetings in the US ahead of a likely visit by Mr Modi in the summer of that year. Mr. Ambani said he was in Delhi and that “leadership” would like Epstein’s help to meet “asap” (as soon as possible) with “Jared” (Kushner) and “Steve” (Bannon). According to the chat, the two men agreed to speak directly on the phone afterwards. But Mr Epstein warned that Mr Kushner and Mr Bannon, who were part of the new oath in Mr Trump’s administration during his first term as president (January 2017-2021), were extremely busy, meeting with “15 people a day” and may not be able to have a “meaningful” conversation.
Another set of reports on March 11 indicated that Mr. Ambani had planned to meet Epstein and “Ehud,” believed to be former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, for dinner in Paris at the time, but had to cancel the meeting because Mr. Ambani was to have dinner with French President Francois Hollande instead. Mr Ambani won the offset deal during the purchase of Rafale fighter jets from France announced during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Paris in April 2015 and was part of the trade delegation accompanying Mr Modi at the time and was understood to have met frequently with President Hollande and French officials.
A number of reports discuss key figures in Washington who Mr Epstein believes Mr Ambani should meet. He is also asked who should be the nominee for US ambassador, which Mr Ambani suggested was General (retired) David Petraeus, while Epstein said Ashley Tellis, a political analyst arrested over stolen official documents last year, was in the running for US ambassador to India at the time in 2017.
Published – 01 Feb 2026 21:58 IST
