Britain’s former ambassador to the U.S. has been arrested in connection with emails he sent to his “best pal” Jeffrey Epstein.
Peter Mandelson, 72, was arrested Monday by detectives investigating allegations of misconduct in public office, reports The Guardian. Cameras captured him being driven away from his home in an unmarked car shortly after being escorted from his home by officers.
Mandelson is accused of leaking a memo from the upper echelons of the British government to the disgraced financier and convicted sexual predator about a change in economic policy that would not be implemented until months later.
British police confirmed an arrest had been made but did not identify Mandelson by name.
“Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office,” they said in a statement. “He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, February 23, and has been taken to a London police station for interview.”
Mandelson was fired from his role as envoy to Washington by U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September, and he resigned from the country’s left-wing Labour Party on February 1 after the latest Epstein dump revealed, among other things, an embarrassing image of him in his tighty-whities.
Mandelson was photographed smiling in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump, whose name is also littered throughout the Epstein files, as recently as May 2025.
“I have been further linked this weekend to the understandable furor surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, and I feel regretful and sorry about this,” said Mandelson, who once called Epstein his “best pal,” in an apology this month.
Mandelson’s embarrassing photo is not what has him in hot water on the home front. Rather, it stems in part from a confidential June 2009 memo that Mandelson forwarded to Epstein. That memo, written by a special adviser to then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, outlined ideas to shore up government finances and attract more private-sector investment. It was labeled “Business Issues.”
Epstein’s cache of emails released by the DOJ—only after months of pressure from the public and Democratic lawmakers—shows that Mandelson forwarded him the memo the same day and wrote, “Interesting note that’s gone to the PM.”
“What salable assets?” Epstein responded.
Mandelson, who reportedly received a trio of $25,000 payments from Epstein in the early 2000s, answered, “Land, property I guess.” The Labour government officially implemented the once-secret plan four months later.
Emails show that Mandelson also told Epstein in 2009, when he was the U.K. business secretary, that he was “trying hard to amend” a tax on bank bonuses. He suggested that JPMorgan’s top banker, Jamie Dimon, should “mildly threaten” the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is equivalent to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, over the tax.
A year later, Mandelson gave Epstein advance notice of a €500 billion ($590 billion) bailout to save the Euro that was not announced publicly until the following morning.
“Sources tell me 500 b euro bailout, almost complete,” Mandelson wrote, according to a document shared on X by Steven Swinford, the political editor of The Times of London.
Representatives for Mandelson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
