When a convicted sex offender becomes the backchannel for India's diplomatic strategy, it reveals more than scandal. On how the Ambani-Epstein conversation exposes elite information networks bypassing formal institutions, creating market advantages through advance policy knowledge, and exemplifying the systematic erosion of state capacity in Modi's India.

In March 2017, as India prepared for what would become the first state visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Israel, a curious chain of emails was unfolding between a Manhattan townhouse and corporate offices in Mumbai. The correspondence involved Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and financier, and Anil Ambani, the Indian billionaire whose wealth had peaked at $42 billion just nine years earlier but who by 2017 was already beginning the descent toward insolvency proceedings. The subject of their exchanges: arranging access to Trump administration officials on behalf of what Ambani described as "Leadership" in Delhi.

I first encountered this story through the searchable email archive at jmail.world, built by developers Riley Walz and Luke Igel from the files released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Scrolling through Epstein's inbox reconstructed as a Gmail interface feels voyeuristic and unsettling, like reading someone's diary without permission. But these are not private musings. These documents, released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee and the Department of Justice, provide evidence of how power operates and precisely because they illuminate networks that shaped policy across multiple countries.

What emerges from 62 documented iMessages plus multiple emails between Epstein and Ambani, spanning March 2017 to January 2018, is not a scandal in the tabloid sense. It is something more structurally revealing: a case study in how informal elite networks bypass institutional processes to shape foreign policy, how private business interests colonise diplomatic strategy, and how the collapse of formal governance creates space for fundamentally inappropriate actors to broker matters of state.

The complete jmail.world archive also documents seven separate email threads between Epstein and Deepak Chopra (the Indian-American wellness author), multiple iMessage exchanges between Epstein and Steve Bannon discussing Modi and India-China strategy, and a reference to Hardeep Singh Puri (former UN diplomat, current Modi cabinet minister) visiting Epstein's Manhattan townhouse. This is not an isolated connection but a network.

The "Leadership" Request and the Architecture of Access

On March 16, 2017, Anil Ambani sent Jeffrey Epstein a text message that would become the most quoted line from the entire archive:

"Hello. Was in delhi. Leadership wld like ur help for me to meet jared and bannon asap. Pl advise. Likely visit to dc by pm in may to meet donald. Also assitance on that."

The message is remarkable not for what it claims but for what it assumes. It assumes Epstein has access to Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon, the two most powerful advisors to a president who had been inaugurated just eight weeks earlier. It assumes this access can be mobilised quickly ("asap"). It assumes Epstein can provide "assistance" on Modi's upcoming Washington visit. Most significantly, it identifies "Leadership" in Delhi as the source of the request.

Epstein's response deflected the direct introduction. He advised that Kushner and Bannon were "meeting 15 people a day. mostly meet and greet with little follow up." He compared any potential meeting to the recent encounter with the Saudi Crown Prince, MBS, which was "basically a waste of time.. though photo op was what they wanted." Instead, Epstein suggested Ambani meet Tom Barrack, Trump's longtime friend and inaugural committee chairman.

This exchange reveals the transactional architecture of elite access. Epstein positions himself as a gatekeeper who understands the real value of political connections. He dismisses the formal meetings that diplomatic channels produce and offers instead what he later called "inside baseball." The currency is not policy influence but information about how power actually works, who actually matters, and which meetings are worth having.

Thirteen days later, on 29 March 2017, Ambani asked Epstein about Modi's trip dates. Epstein's reply demonstrated he had access to strategic information well beyond what would be publicly available: "yes i fully understood. what i am told is that discussions re Israel strategy were dominating modi dates. however lots and lots of internal conflicts taking priority."

The following day, Ambani emailed Epstein a Business Standard article about Modi's potential U.S. visit. Epstein's response was cryptic and explicit: "India Israel Key -not for email."

This instruction to move sensitive discussions off written channels constitutes documentary evidence that Epstein believed the India-Israel coordination involved information requiring operational security. It suggests he was privy to negotiations that official diplomatic channels were either facilitating or deliberately bypassing.

The Defence Procurement Context: Following the Money

To understand why Anil Ambani was sending these messages, we need to examine what his companies were doing in early 2017. This is where the development economics lens becomes essential, because the story is not about personalities but about how private business interests shape public policy.

In February 2017, Reliance Aerostructure Limited formed a joint venture with Dassault Aviation for the production of Rafale jets and Falcon business jets in India. This was the same month Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the Emirati businessman who ran DP World, introduced Ambani to Epstein. The Rafale deal was announced in 2016 and had already become politically controversial in India, with opposition parties questioning why Reliance Defence was selected as Dassault's offset partner despite having no prior experience in aviation manufacturing.

Also in 2016-2017, Ambani's Reliance Defence Ltd entered into a joint venture with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, Israel's state-owned defence manufacturer, valued at $10 billion over a decade, to produce air-to-air missiles and air defence systems. Rafael is one of Israel's largest defence companies, producing the Iron Dome system, precision-guided munitions, and advanced missile systems.

By 2017, India had become Israel's largest weapons buyer, purchasing $715 million worth of weaponry according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This represented a dramatic acceleration from previous years. The India-Israel defence relationship was becoming central to both countries' strategic planning.

Now read Epstein's 30 March 2017 message again: "India Israel Key -not for email." This is not idle conversation. This is a businessperson with $10 billion in Israeli defence contracts corresponding to a political fixer about strategy for the Prime Minister of India's diplomatic visits, with explicit instructions to keep the India-Israel coordination off the written record.

The emails contain no smoking gun proving that Ambani's defence contracts shaped Modi's Israel visit. What they establish is the timeline and the network. Ambani is seeking U.S. political access on behalf of Delhi "Leadership" during the exact period when his companies are finalising massive defence deals with Israeli and French firms, and when India is preparing for its first Prime Ministerial visit to Israel in history.

This is regulatory capture operating at the level of foreign policy. Private defence contractors don't just lobby for specific procurement decisions. They create the political relationships and diplomatic architecture that make those decisions seem natural, even inevitable.

Modi's Israel Visit: "Danced and Sang for the Benefit of the US President"

Modi's visit to Israel in July 2017 marked a historic pivot in India's foreign policy. For seven decades, India had maintained a pro-Palestinian stance rooted in post-colonial solidarity and Non-Aligned Movement principles. That changed decisively when Modi landed in Tel Aviv on July 4, 2017, becoming the first sitting Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel.

The visit was deliberately structured to signal a break from the past. Modi did not visit Ramallah or meet with Palestinian officials, a stark departure from protocol. He met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Western Wall. He visited Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial. The optics were unmistakable: India was publicly aligning with Israel without the traditional diplomatic balancing act.

On July 6, 2017, Jeffrey Epstein wrote to an individual identified only as "Jabor Y." (believed to be connected to Qatar's former Prime Minister):

"The Indian Prime minister modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president. they had met a few weeks ago.. IT WORKED.!"

Epstein separately messaged Ambani: "Your guys performance was both clever and executed well. Good work."

When former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers asked Epstein two days later whether he still believed Trump was better than Hillary Clinton, Epstein responded affirmatively, citing India-Israel relations as evidence: "yes, defintley India israel. for example great and all his doing."

These messages reveal how Epstein understood Modi's visit to Israel: as a performance calibrated for Trump's approval, executed according to strategic advice, and successful in cementing U.S.-India-Israel triangulation. Whether Modi actually "took advice" from Epstein is unknowable and frankly implausible. What matters is that Epstein believed the visit was coordinated for U.S. political benefit, and that he was discussing this coordination with Ambani, whose defence companies stood to gain billions from deeper India-Israel ties.

From a development economics perspective, this represents the complete colonisation of foreign policy by private commercial interests. Strategic autonomy, the principle that India's foreign policy serves national interests rather than great power alignments, becomes a fiction when defence procurement contracts create financial incentives for diplomatic realignment.

May 2019: "Modi on Board" and the Townhouse Meeting

The most concentrated activity in the Epstein-Ambani correspondence occurred in May 2019, during India's general election. By this point, Ambani's financial situation had deteriorated significantly. In February 2019, India's Supreme Court held him in contempt and ordered him to pay Ericsson 4.53 billion rupees within four weeks or face three months in jail. The final payment, including interest, came to 4.62 billion rupees (approximately $66 million). His telecommunications company, Reliance Communications, was in bankruptcy proceedings. His net worth, once $42 billion, had effectively collapsed.

Yet on May 23, 2019, as election results confirmed Modi's decisive re-election victory with 303 seats, Anil Ambani travelled to Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan townhouse at 9 East 71st Street. Email confirmations show he arrived at 4:30 P.M.

Hours before Ambani's arrival, Epstein had messaged Steve Bannon: "modi sending someone to see me on thurs." That evening at approximately 8:23 PM EDT, after Ambani departed, Epstein reported to Bannon:

"really interesting modi meeting, he won with HUGE mandate. his guy said that no one in wash speaks to him however his main enemy is CHINA! and their proxy in the region pakistan. they will host the g20 in 22.. totally buys into your vision."

Bannon responded at 2:06 AM the following morning, confirming he was "doing a one hour show for India on Modi" while traveling. The next day, Epstein messaged Ambani: "i think mr modi might enjoy meeting steve bannon, you all share the china problem." Ambani responded: "sure."

Within hours, Epstein texted Bannon: "modi on board."

Six weeks later, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges. He died by suicide in jail on 10 August 2019, awaiting trial. Three weeks after that, Modi appeared with Trump at the "Howdy Modi" rally in Houston, declaring "Abki baar, Trump sarkar" (This time, Trump's government), a slogan widely criticised as inappropriate interference in U.S. elections.

The Development Economics of Elite Networks

Let me be explicit about what this evidence establishes and what it does not.

What it establishes: A sustained correspondence between a convicted sex offender and an Indian billionaire with major defense contracts, spanning March 2017 to May 2019, in which the billionaire explicitly invokes Delhi "Leadership" to request political access, Epstein demonstrates insider knowledge about India-Israel diplomatic strategy, and both men coordinate around Modi's major diplomatic visits during a period of unprecedented India-Israel defense cooperation.

What it does not establish: That Modi personally authorised Ambani to represent him, that the Indian government formally engaged Epstein as an intermediary, or that these communications directly caused any specific policy decision.

But from a development economics perspective, the causal question misses the point. What matters is the structure: private wealth intermediating state policy, informal networks bypassing institutions, and the total absence of functional checks creating space for a convicted sex offender to operate at the intersection of business and diplomacy.

This network reveals four things about institutional capacity in Modi's India:

First, diplomatic channels don't work. Why seek backchannel access through a convicted criminal? India's foreign service either couldn't navigate Trump's Washington or lacked the relationships to reach actual power centres. This is institutional failure.

Second, elite access persists regardless of wealth. Ambani went from the sixth-richest person globally in 2008 to facing bankruptcy and jail in 2019. Yet he still arranged meetings for the Prime Minister's representatives and invoked the concept of "Leadership." His fortune collapsed, but his network position held. Elite power in India is mediated by relationships rather than economic productivity.

Third, conflict-of-interest rules don't exist. Ambani held billions in Israeli defence contracts while coordinating with Epstein about India-Israel strategy. No review, no disclosure, no institutional mechanism to even ask whether a private defence contractor should be brokering diplomatic strategy.

Fourth, informal power is just how things work. The emails are casual. Ambani writes to Epstein as though it's perfectly normal for a sex offender to provide "guidance on dealing wth white house for India relationship and defence cooperation." No hint of impropriety. The assumption that power operates through personal networks rather than institutions is so complete that it requires no justification.

The Broader Network: Chopra, Puri, and Bannon

The Ambani-Epstein correspondence is not an isolated connection. Systematic searches of the jmail.world archive reveal a small but significant network of Indian connections.

Deepak Chopra: The Trusted Friend

The Indian-American wellness author Deepak Chopra maintained active correspondence with Epstein from 2016 through 2018, well after Epstein's 2008 conviction. Seven documented email threads reveal a relationship characterised by trust and social intimacy.

In July 2016, Chopra wrote: "Anything we share is between us. I share nothing with anyone but trust you."

When asked in November 2016 whether Epstein's civil case had been dropped, Chopra responded with a single word: "Good."

Chopra forwarded Epstein his political articles about Trump, discussed dinner parties with Woody Allen at which they discussed "existential dilemmas," and maintained what he later defended as a relationship under the "doctor and patient privilege" (though Chopra is not a medical doctor).

The correspondence reveals Epstein's broader social circle within New York's cultural elite and demonstrates that his criminal conviction did not prevent him from maintaining friendships with prominent public intellectuals.

Hardeep Singh Puri: The Diplomatic Reference

Hardeep Singh Puri presents a different category of connection. The former UN diplomat (India's Permanent Representative 2009-2013, President of the UN Security Council in August 2011), who joined Modi's cabinet in September 2017, is referenced in two documents in the archive.

First, in a draft article by journalist Michael Wolff dated 8 October 2016, describing visitors to Epstein's Manhattan townhouse:

"The next morning, it's Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, for breakfast. Barak is, over his omelet, able to defend both Obama and Putin. Then a high ranking official from the Obama White House, whose name I am asked not to use. There follows the former head of the UN Security Council, Hardeep Purie, and then head of the central bank of Kazakhstan, Kairat Kelimbetov."

Second, on March 31, 2015, New York Magazine's Alex Yablon sent Epstein fact-checking questions: "After meeting with New, did you meet with the following: Hardeep Purie, Kairat Kelimbetov, Nathan Myhrvold, Martin Nowak, Richard Axel, Ron Baron, Josh Harris?"

This confirms that Wolff's claim about Puri visiting Epstein was being verified for publication. However, comprehensive searches of jmail.world found no direct emails from or to Puri, no iMessages, no references to "Digital India" meetings, no Reid Hoffman introductions, and no documented calendar entries beyond what appears in Wolff's article about what seems to be UN General Assembly week 2014.

The significance is not that Puri had extensive communication with Epstein (he apparently did not), but that a senior diplomat who, within a year, would become a Modi cabinet minister was part of Epstein's social circle during UN events, demonstrating the porousness of the boundary between legitimate diplomatic networks and fundamentally compromised actors.

Steve Bannon: The Modi Strategy Discussions

Perhaps most revealing are the iMessage exchanges between Epstein and Steve Bannon in May 2019, as Modi won re-election with a decisive mandate.

On May 23, 2019, Epstein tells Bannon: "you should meet with modi. I can set. his focus wants to be stopping china."

The next day: "modi inauguration on sunday. my guy said to tell you that you are missing a great opportunity, look at your underwear. it either says made in china or made in india. how is it possible that you guys don't understand shared goals"

On May 27: "1. you still need to call out china on currency. Bubble etc. 2. India. Great opportunity."

And on March 28, 2019: "Indias little reported satellite killer. Changes cyber game. - one belt one road, needs secure communication."

These exchanges show Epstein positioning himself as an intermediary for India-U.S. strategic coordination specifically around China containment. The "my guy" who delivered the underwear message is almost certainly Anil Ambani, who visited Epstein's Manhattan townhouse on May 23, 2019, the day of Modi's election victory.

This is not about a scandal. It is about structure. A convicted sex offender was functioning as a backchannel for strategic discussions between a former White House chief strategist and representatives of India's government, specifically around defence and China strategy, during the exact period when Indian defence contractors with ties to that same convicted criminal were finalising billions in weapons deals.

What Does Institutional Decay Look Like?

The question is not whether Modi personally knew Epstein (there is no evidence he did) or whether Indian diplomacy was formally compromised (we cannot know). The question is: Why did India's business and political elite treat a convicted sex offender as a legitimate intermediary for matters touching state policy?

Part of the answer is structural. Epstein positioned himself in the gaps between institutions. He claimed to offer what formal channels could not: direct access, strategic intelligence, and the ability to broker introductions based on personal relationships rather than official credentials. In a world where institutions function properly, these gaps do not exist or are small enough to be unexploitable. In a world where institutions have decayed, these gaps become highways.

The more fundamental answer is about accountability. Formal diplomatic channels create records, require approvals, and leave paper trails that can be audited. Informal networks operate in darkness. When Epstein tells Ambani "India Israel Key -not for email," he is explicitly instructing him to avoid creating evidence. When Ambani invokes "Leadership" without specifying names, he creates deniability. When meetings happen at private residences rather than official venues, there are no visitor logs.

This is not a conspiracy. This is how elite networks operate when institutional checks have eroded. It is completely legal to have private meetings, send encrypted messages, and introduce people through personal networks. What makes it problematic is when these networks interfere with matters that should be subject to public scrutiny and institutional process: foreign policy alignment, defence procurement strategy, and diplomatic coordination.

From a development economics perspective, this represents the opposite of state capacity building. Strong states have institutional processes that channel decisions through accountable mechanisms. Weak states rely on informal elite networks because formal institutions lack the capacity, credibility, or effectiveness to function effectively. The Epstein files document India behaving like a weak state, despite its size, wealth, and geopolitical significance.

The Rafale Shadow

Throughout 2017-2019, as Ambani was corresponding with Epstein, India's Rafale deal was becoming the country's largest defence scandal in decades. The opposition Congress party alleged that Modi had personally intervened to replace the original Hindustan Aeronautics Limited offset partner with Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence, despite Reliance having no prior experience in aviation manufacturing.

The deal's timeline is striking. In January 2016, Modi announced the purchase of 36 Rafale jets from France's Dassault Aviation. In February 2017, as Ambani began his correspondence with Epstein, Reliance Aerostructure formed a joint venture with Dassault. Throughout 2017, as the Epstein-Ambani emails discussed Modi's U.S. and Israel visits, Dassault was finalising offset arrangements that would funnel billions through Reliance companies.

By October 2018, as controversy intensified, Ambani issued a statement claiming that "Dassault chose Reliance Defence as a partner for offset obligations connected to the Rafale deal due to an advanced ecosystem developed by Reliance Defence, which includes a fully functional greenfield aerospace park spread over 270 acres at Mihan SEZ in Nagpur."

Within months, Reliance Defence was in insolvency proceedings. The "advanced ecosystem" never materialised. The offset obligations were not fulfilled. In 2019, India's Supreme Court dismissed review petitions challenging the Rafale deal without ordering the court-monitored investigation that opposition parties had demanded.

I cannot prove that Ambani's correspondence with Epstein about India's diplomatic strategy was connected to the Rafale deal. What I can demonstrate is that at the exact moment Ambani was invoking Delhi "Leadership" to seek U.S. political access through a convicted criminal, his companies were finalizing defense contracts worth billions that would, within two years become the subject of Supreme Court petitions, though the Court ultimately found no evidence of wrongdoing in the decision-making.

This is the political economy of connected capitalism. Private contractors don't just execute government contracts. They shape the diplomatic relationships and strategic alignments that enable those contracts. Defence procurement doesn't follow foreign policy. In important ways, defence procurement shapes foreign policy, because the private actors who benefit from arms deals have both the motive and the opportunity to influence the diplomatic architecture that facilitates those deals.

The Broader Pattern: Fiscal Federalism and Elite Capture

Regular readers of this publication know that I frequently write about how measurement systems exclude vulnerable populations and how dashboard-focused governance creates illusions of progress while ignoring ground realities. The Epstein files constitute a distinct form of evidence, but they point to the same structural problem: the systematic hollowing out of institutional capacity in Modi's India.

Consider the pattern across domains:

In fiscal federalism, I have documented how cesses and surcharges bypass constitutional revenue-sharing to centralise resources in Delhi while shifting implementation costs to states. This creates a fiscal architecture where the centre controls resources but bears limited accountability for outcomes.

In welfare provision, I have shown how ONORC implementation failures, from biometric exclusion to ration shop corruption, systematically harm migrants and informal workers while official dashboards report universal coverage. The measurement systems are designed to be legible to power rather than responsive to need.

In urban governance, my work at a state ministry revealed that the Swachh Survekshan assesses visible cleanliness while overlooking underground infrastructure failures that cause waterborne disease. The metrics are optimised for media coverage rather than public health outcomes.

The Epstein files reveal the same pattern operating at the level of foreign policy and defence procurement. Formal diplomatic institutions exist but are bypassed by informal networks. Official processes generate paperwork, but decisions are made in private meetings. Accountability mechanisms produce records but elite actors deliberately move sensitive discussions off documented channels.

This is not corruption in the narrow sense of bribery (though that may also occur). This is institutional bypass as a governing strategy. It is faster to make deals through personal networks than through bureaucratic processes. It is easier to shape policy through informal influence than through formal advocacy. It is more effective to broker access through intermediaries with connections than through official channels.

The problem is that this architecture is fundamentally incompatible with democratic accountability. When policy is made through networks that deliberately avoid creating records, citizens cannot evaluate decisions. When diplomatic strategy is coordinated through private businesspeople rather than foreign service professionals, there is no institutional memory or collective learning. When defence procurement becomes entangled with private commercial interests through actors who invoke "Leadership" without specification, there is no mechanism to assess whether national interests are actually being served.

The Information Barter Economy: When Non-Public Intel Becomes Currency

In his analysis of the Epstein files for The New York Times, Anand Giridharadas identified what he termed an "information barter economy" at the heart of elite networks. "What the Epstein class understands," he wrote, "is that the more accessible information becomes, the more precious nonpublic information is." The Ambani-Epstein correspondence provides a textbook case of how this economy operates when the traded information concerns government policy with direct market implications.

The academic term for what Giridharadas describes is "information rents." In development economics, rents are returns that exceed what competitive markets would provide. Information rents arise when asymmetric access to policy knowledge enables certain actors to profit before the information becomes public. The Epstein files document precisely this mechanism in operation.

The Timeline of Temporal Advantage

Between March and July 2017, the correspondence reveals what finance literature calls "temporal information advantage." Consider the sequence:

March 16, 2017: Ambani texts Epstein: "Leadership wld like ur help for me to meet jared and bannon asap... Likely visit to dc by pm in may to meet donald."

March 29, 2017: Ambani asks about Modi's trip dates. Epstein responds: "yes i fully understood. what i am told is that discussions re Israel strategy were dominating modi dates."

March 30, 2017: Ambani sends Epstein a Business Standard article about Modi potentially visiting the U.S. Epstein's response: "India Israel Key - not for email."

July 4-6, 2017: Modi makes his historic visit to Israel, the first by an Indian Prime Minister.

July 6, 2017: Epstein texts someone (believed to be connected to Qatar): "The Indian Prime minister modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president... IT WORKED!"

The phrase "not for email" is particularly revealing. It demonstrates Epstein's recognition that the information being discussed had value precisely because it was not public. In the information barter economy, telling someone to move a discussion off written channels is itself a signal about the market sensitivity of information.

This matters because during this exact period, Ambani's companies held massive positions that would be directly affected by India-Israel defence cooperation:

1. Reliance Defence's $10 billion joint venture with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems (an Israeli state-owned firm)

2. Reliance Aerostructure's joint venture with Dassault for Rafale offset obligations worth Rs 30,000 crore

3. India became Israel's largest weapons buyer in 2017 at $715 million

The temporal advantage is clear: Ambani knew in March that "Israel strategy" was dominating Modi's schedule, and that the India-Israel relationship was "key," months before this became public knowledge.

What Financial Markets Actually Reacted To

Stock markets demonstrated that this information was material. When defence deal announcements occurred, Reliance stocks moved sharply:

On October 3, 2016, when Dassault and Reliance announced their partnership, Reliance Defence surged 10.45%, and Reliance Infrastructure gained 6% on the Bombay Stock Exchange in a single day. This is precisely the kind of price movement that demonstrates information materiality under securities law.

But here's what makes the Epstein correspondence significant from a regulatory perspective: the stock movements occurred at the moment of public announcement. The files reveal that Ambani had information about India's Israel strategy and defence cooperation months earlier. In efficient markets, if such information had been public, the price adjustments would have occurred then. The gap between when Ambani knew and when markets knew represents what economists call "unrealised information value."

The Financial Advisory Relationship

The correspondence also reveals Epstein positioning himself as Ambani's financial advisor during a period of corporate crisis. By 2019, Reliance companies were facing insolvency. According to multiple news reports citing the files, Ambani sought Epstein's help in April 2019: "How can u help to arrange financing at corporate level?"

The request was specific: Ambani sought to raise a personal loan of $750 million in what he described as a "bankruptcy proof" structure. The concept, as described in the files, involved creating a company to hold shares of listed companies pledged as collateral for loans, potentially shielding personal assets from corporate insolvency proceedings.

Epstein advised on the structuring, though he cautioned about certain disclosure requirements. The Wall Street Journal and multiple Indian outlets reported that the files showed discussions about creating offshore structures to facilitate such arrangements. This reveals another dimension of how elite information networks function. It's not just that Epstein provided advance notice of policy developments. He also offered technical expertise in financial engineering during Ambani's corporate collapse, thereby demonstrating what Giridharadas identified as the "capital laundering" function: converting different forms of capital (money, access, expertise, prestige) into one another through network relationships.

What Indian Insider Trading Law Actually Requires

Under SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015, as amended most recently in March 2025, three elements constitute insider trading:

Element 1: Possession of Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI)

The regulations define UPSI as information that is (a) not generally available and (b) likely to materially affect security prices when made public.

The March 2025 amendments explicitly added "award or termination of order/contracts not in the normal course of business" to the illustrative list of what constitutes UPSI. This amendment was specifically designed to capture situations involving advance knowledge of government contracts and procurement decisions.

Element 2: Trading or Communication While in Possession of UPSI

The regulations prohibit both trading on UPSI and communicating UPSI to others who might trade.

Critically, Indian law does not require that you be a corporate insider. The definition of "insider" includes "any person in possession of or having access to UPSI." This means that external advisors, intermediaries, or anyone who receives such information falls within the regulatory scope.

Element 3: Materiality

Information is material if it would affect investment decisions. Stock price movements of 10% on defence deal announcements (as Reliance Defence experienced) provide clear evidence of materiality.

What the Evidence Would Need to Show

To establish an insider trading case based on the Epstein correspondence, regulators would need to demonstrate:

What the files establish:

1. Documented advance knowledge of Modi's Israel visit months before public announcement (March 30, 2017: "India Israel Key")

2. Explicit recognition of information sensitivity ("not for email")

3. Discussion of "Israel strategy" dominating Modi's schedule

4. Ambani's substantial business interests in India-Israel defence cooperation ($10 billion Rafael JV)

5. Pattern of seeking and receiving strategic information through Epstein

6. Financial advisory relationship involving complex structuring

What remains unestablished in public documents:

1. Specific trades made by Ambani, Reliance entities, or related parties during the correspondence period

2. Whether any trading occurred based on information received

3. Causal connection between information received and trading decisions

4. Whether information was communicated to others who traded

No public records indicate SEBI has investigated trading patterns in Reliance Defence stocks around the Rafale announcement or Israel-related developments during 2016-2018. No enforcement action has been taken.

The Comparative Enforcement Problem

The challenge in prosecuting trading on government policy information becomes clear when examining international cases:

In the United States, the Second Circuit's December 2022 decision in United States v. Blaszczak severely limited the prosecution of trading on government information. The court held that confidential regulatory information does not constitute "property" under federal fraud statutes. A former CMS employee had passed Medicare reimbursement rate information to hedge funds, generating $3.5 million in profits. Despite initial conviction, the case was ultimately reversed.

Similarly, multiple U.S. senators made significant stock trades after a classified January 2020 briefing on the potential pandemic severity of COVID-19. Senator Richard Burr sold $1.7 million in holdings. Despite an FBI investigation, no charges were brought. The STOCK Act's penalty for violations is just $200, and no member of Congress has ever been prosecuted under it.

The successful prosecution in SEC v. Stiles (2023) involved a pharmaceutical executive who traded on advance knowledge of a government loan to Kodak, but this case turned on misappropriation of employer information rather than pure government policy intelligence.

India's SEBI framework is closer to the EU's Market Abuse Regulation, which employs an "information parity" model under which mere possession of inside information, combined with trading, constitutes a violation, regardless of how the information was obtained. This theoretically makes enforcement easier than under U.S. law.

However, research revealed no SEBI enforcement cases involving trading on advance knowledge of government contracts, diplomatic developments, or policy announcements obtained through political connections. The regulations appear to cover such conduct, but enforcement has focused on corporate insiders rather than on politically connected individuals with access to policy information.

Political Connections as Financial Assets

The academic literature on political connections provides essential context for interpreting the revelations in the Epstein files.

Raymond Fisman's landmark 2001 study in the American Economic Review established that political connections can account for approximately 23% of a firm's share price. By examining Indonesian stock reactions to news about President Suharto's health, Fisman demonstrated that markets explicitly price the value of access to government resources.

Mara Faccio's 2006 cross-country analysis of 47 countries found that when companies announce new political connections, stock prices increase significantly. Connected firms enjoy preferential access to government contracts and operate more prevalently in countries with higher corruption levels. Subsequent research by Faccio (2010) documented that politically connected firms also benefit from lower taxation and higher leverage. What the Epstein files reveal is precisely the mechanism through which political connections generate financial value: advance access to policy information that markets would otherwise receive only at the moment of public announcement.

Goldman, Rocholl, and So's 2013 study in the Review of Finance documented that companies with politically connected board members experience "significant and large increases in procurement contracts" when their connected party wins elections. The study established empirically that political connections directly translate into government capital flows.

The Epstein-Ambani correspondence illustrates all three mechanisms:

1. Temporal advantage: Knowledge of diplomatic visits and defence cooperation timelines before public announcement

2. Network advantage: Access to decision-makers (Ehud Barak, Steve Bannon, Tom Barrack) who could provide policy clarity

3. Interpretive advantage: Understanding of how diplomatic developments would materialise into specific defence contracts

Fisman and Wang's 2015 study documented what they termed the "mortality cost of political connections." They found that politically connected Chinese firms have higher workplace fatality rates because connections enable avoidance of costly safety compliance. This finding illustrates a broader truth: elite information advantages don't just distort capital markets; they impose real social costs when connected actors can bypass regulations that protect the vulnerable.

Anil Ambani and the Timing of Reliance Defence

The most striking timeline element is one that became politically controversial in India: Reliance Defence Limited was incorporated on March 28, 2015, just 13 days before Modi made his surprise announcement in France on April 10, 2015, that India would purchase 36 Rafale jets, abandoning the previous tender for 126 aircraft that would have gone to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

By February 2017, when Sultan bin Sulayem introduced Ambani to Epstein, Reliance had already formed its joint venture with Dassault. The question that drove India's Rafale controversy was: How did a company with zero prior experience in aviation manufacturing become the offset partner for India's largest defence deal?

The Epstein files don't answer that question directly. They document that by March 2017, Ambani was seeking U.S. political access through Epstein on behalf of Delhi "Leadership," while simultaneously holding $10 billion in Israeli defence contracts and preparing for Modi's historic visit to Israel.

The correspondence shows Ambani operating in precisely the mode Giridharadas described: trading information and access as currency, positioning himself as intermediary between power centers, and leveraging network connections that bypass institutional channels.

Seeking Career Advice from a Convicted Criminal

Giridharadas highlighted one email exchange in particular as emblematic of elite network dysfunction: Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as President Obama's White House counsel, corresponded with Epstein in 2014 while apparently contemplating whether to accept the position of U.S. Attorney General.

"Who does she seek advice from?" Giridharadas wrote. "A convicted sex offender."

In another email, Epstein asked her a legal question about Trump's proposed border wall emergency declaration. She responded by noting that a prospective employer had offered her a $2 million signing bonus (she ultimately joined Goldman Sachs). The casual movement from constitutional crisis to personal financial windfall, as captured in Giridharadas's analysis, illustrates how this class operates.

The Ambani-Epstein correspondence reveals the same pattern. A billionaire defence contractor seeking U.S. political access on behalf of India's government, discussing "Israel strategy" and defence cooperation with a convicted sex offender, while holding billions in contracts that depend on precisely those diplomatic relationships. The casualness with which both Ruemmler and Ambani treated Epstein as a legitimate advisor demonstrates what Giridharadas termed the "permanent survivor" mentality: regardless of scandal, criminal conviction, or ethical compromise, certain people remain positioned in networks that matter.

The Broader Pattern: Information Rents and State Capture

The World Bank's work on "state capture" (Hellman, Jones & Kaufmann, 2000) distinguished between administrative corruption and the systematic influence of policy formulation through private channels. The Epstein files reveal a variant: not changing rules, but obtaining advance knowledge of government decisions that affect markets.

In properly functioning markets with strong institutions, policy information flows through official channels to all market participants simultaneously. Price discovery occurs at the time of the public announcement. But when elite networks provide advance notice to connected actors, those actors capture "information rents"—returns exceeding what competitive markets would provide.

The social costs are multiple:

Capital misallocation: As Faccio documented, politically connected firms underperform on accounting measures despite market advantages. Resources flow to connected firms rather than efficient ones.

Market efficiency distortion: When non-public political information systematically advantages certain traders, markets cannot perform their price discovery function.

Entry barriers: Connected incumbents use information and regulatory advantages to block competition.

Institutional erosion: Every time elite actors bypass formal channels, those institutions atrophy further. When Epstein tells Ambani "India Israel Key - not for email," he's explicitly instructing movement off documented channels, weakening the institutional mechanisms that create accountability.

This is the core of the story in development economics. It's not just that insider trading may have occurred (though the correspondence certainly raises that question). It is that the existence of parallel information channels for connected elites represents systematic institutional bypass. Formal diplomatic channels exist, but Ambani seeks information through Epstein. Official procurement processes exist, but defence contractors coordinate strategy with political fixers. Securities disclosure requirements exist, but discussions move "off email" when they become sensitive.

What Remains Unknown and Why It Matters

The Epstein files document information flows. They do not—and cannot, without subpoena power—document trading activity. We know Ambani received advance information about Modi's Israel strategy. We know his companies held billions in Israel-related defence contracts. We know stock prices moved dramatically on defence deal announcements. What we don't know is whether Ambani, Reliance entities, or related parties traded during the period when they possessed non-public information.

This evidentiary gap is precisely why enforcement of trading on political information remains rare. Sophisticated actors understand that creating documentary evidence of trading decisions based on specific information exposes them to prosecution. The absence of evidence is often the product of a successful legal strategy rather than proof of compliance.

But from a development economics perspective, the enforcement gap itself is revealing. It demonstrates that regulations exist on paper while elite networks operate with practical immunity. The gap between formal law and actual enforcement represents what political economists term "institutional weakness"—rules that apply differentially based on power and connections rather than universally.

Anil Ambani and Reliance Group have issued no statement responding to questions about the Epstein correspondence, despite outreach from multiple news organisations. The Ministry of External Affairs dismissed Epstein's claims as "trashy ruminations," but has not addressed the broader pattern of correspondence or its regulatory implications.

The silence is itself instructive. In Giridharadas's framing, members of the permanent survivor class don't need to respond to scandals because they understand their position in elite networks transcends any single controversy. Ambani's companies may have entered insolvency, but his network position persisted—he was still visiting Epstein in Manhattan in May 2019, still invoking "Leadership," still positioning himself as an intermediary between power centres.

When Private Wealth Intermediates State Policy

The insider-trading angle is ultimately inseparable from the broader institutional question addressed by the Modi article. When private defence contractors coordinate diplomatic strategy, when convicted criminals serve as financial advisors to billionaires, when "Leadership" is invoked without specification to seek political access, the question isn't just whether specific securities violations occurred.

The question is whether India's governance architecture serves the public interest or facilitates rent extraction by connected elites. The information barter economy identified by Giridharadas operates at the intersection of market regulation and political accountability. Its persistence represents a form of institutional decay in which formal processes exist, but elite networks can bypass them at will.

The Epstein files don't prove insider trading occurred. What they document is something broader and more systematic: the existence of parallel information channels that advantage connected actors, the treatment of policy knowledge as private currency to be traded in elite networks, and the casualness with which fundamentally inappropriate intermediaries are integrated into processes that should be subject to public scrutiny and institutional oversight.

This is how "development" under conditions of weak institutions actually operates: not through transparent markets and accountable governance, but through networks that convert access into information, information into advantage, and advantage into wealth—while formal institutions produce paperwork that creates the illusion of process without its substance.

I want to be scrupulous about what remains unknown. The emails document correspondence, not causation. They show that Anil Ambani sought to position himself as a backchannel intermediary and that Jeffrey Epstein claimed to possess insider knowledge of India's diplomatic strategy. They do not prove that this coordination influenced policy outcomes.

We don't know if Modi personally authorised Ambani to act on behalf of Delhi's "Leadership." We don't know whether the Indian government was aware of these communications. We don't know if the meetings Epstein arranged ever occurred or if they mattered. We don't know what "india israel key" actually referred to, beyond the obvious implication that the India-Israel relationship was strategically central.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs dismissed Epstein's claims as "trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt." This is a reasonable response to a single email boasting that Modi "took advice" from Epstein. But it does not address the systematic pattern of correspondence, the specific invocation of "Leadership," the demonstrated access to strategic information about Modi's diplomatic schedules, or the question of why Indian business and political elites treated Epstein as a legitimate interlocutor.

What we have is not a smoking gun but a smoking network. We can see the contours of how informal power operates, even if we cannot trace every connection. We can document that elite actors behaved as if backchannel access through compromised intermediaries was normal and valuable, even if we cannot prove specific policy decisions resulted.

From an analytical perspective, this is often the nature of evidence about elite capture. Direct proof of quid pro quo corruption is rare precisely because sophisticated actors know how to avoid creating that evidence. What they cannot avoid is leaving traces of the networks themselves, the patterns of who talks to whom about what, and the structural arrangements that make certain kinds of influence possible.

The Persistence of Networks Despite Personal Ruin

One of the most striking aspects of this story is Anil Ambani's trajectory. In 2008, Forbes ranked him the world's sixth-richest person with a net worth of $42 billion. By 2019, he was facing bankruptcy proceedings, Supreme Court contempt charges, and the effective collapse of his business empire.

Yet throughout this financial implosion, Ambani maintained access. He could still arrange meetings with Jeffrey Epstein. He could still claim to speak on behalf of Delhi's "Leadership." He could still position himself as an intermediary for India's diplomatic strategy. In May 2019, as his companies were in insolvency proceedings and courts were threatening jail time, he travelled to New York for a meeting that Epstein described to Steve Bannon as a "really interesting modi meeting."

This reveals a fundamental aspect of elite power in India. Wealth is helpful but not essential. What matters is network position, the ability to claim insider status, and the credibility to invoke connections to power. Ambani's personal fortune collapsed, but his membership in elite networks persisted.

This pattern has implications for our understanding of inequality and political economy. Wealth inequality is measured in stocks and flows, assets and income. But power inequality operates through networks that may be partially independent of measurable wealth. Someone can lose their fortune but retain their position in elite social structures, their access to decision-makers, and their ability to intermediate between power centres.

From a development perspective, this suggests that fighting inequality requires more than wealth redistribution. It requires disrupting the network structures that allow elite actors to exercise power independent of formal credentials or economic contribution. It requires building institutional processes strong enough that informal networks cannot bypass them. It requires accountability mechanisms that apply to networks as well as individuals.

Conclusion: When States Lack Capacity, Markets Fill the Gap

The Modi Epstein files tell a story about what happens when state capacity erodes. Formal diplomatic institutions exist, but can't achieve strategic goals quickly enough. Official channels create bureaucracy but not influence. Institutional processes produce accountability but not results.

Private wealth flows into these gaps. Defence contractors don't just want government contracts—they want to structure the diplomatic relationships that make those contracts possible. Billionaires don't just want access—they position themselves as indispensable intermediaries between power centres.

This isn't unique to India. It's evident across countries in which institutional strength has weakened. When formal processes are slow or ineffective, individuals rely on informal networks. When official channels can't reach decision-makers, they cultivate personal relationships. When accountability mechanisms are burdensome, they move discussions off the record.

The tragedy: this solution exacerbates the problem. Policy made through informal networks atrophies formal institutions. Strategic decisions made by private businesspeople erode the capacity of the diplomatic service. Elite actors who bypass accountability mechanisms render those mechanisms less relevant.

The Epstein files show this process at work. Email chains, meeting requests, careful calibration of who knows what, explicit instructions to move sensitive discussions "off email." The mechanisms by which informal power operates when institutions fail to gatekeep. India's Ministry of External Affairs dismissed these emails as "ravings of a criminal." That dismissal is revealing. It suggests there's no institutional mechanism to ask why India's business and political elite treated a convicted sex offender as legitimate, why "Leadership" was invoked without specification, or why private defense contractors coordinated diplomatic strategy.

These questions matter because they point to the structural problem: when institutions can't perform core functions, markets and networks fill the gap, but they don't serve public interests. They serve those with wealth and connections. Which is how you get Anil Ambani invoking Delhi "Leadership" to arrange access through Jeffrey Epstein while his defence companies negotiate billion-dollar Israeli contracts and India's Prime Minister prepares to "dance and sing in Israel for the benefit of the US president."

This isn't how democracies are supposed to work. But it's how they work when institutional capacity has eroded to the point where formal processes are optional for those with sufficient wealth and connections.

Methodological Note: This analysis is based on comprehensive searches of jmail.world, the official searchable archive of Epstein's emails released by the U.S. House Oversight Committee and Department of Justice in November 2025. The archive contains 62 documented iMessages between Epstein and Anil Ambani (March 2017 - January 2018), 7 email threads with Deepak Chopra (2016-2018), multiple iMessage exchanges with Steve Bannon discussing Modi and India (2019), and third-party references to Hardeep Singh Puri. All factual claims about message content have been verified against primary source documents available at jmail.world/messages/anil-ambani and related thread URLs.

Varna is an independent development economist and writes at policygrounds.press.

Further Reading

1. Anand Giridharadas, "It's So Much Bigger Than Epstein", The.Ink, February 2026

2. Ryan Grim, "Leadership Would Like Your Help: Indian Billionaire Tapped Jeffrey Epstein Before Modi's Visits", Drop Site News, January 2026

3. Larry Summers & Jeffrey Epstein correspondence, New York Times coverage

4. N. Ram & Sriram Karri, "Rafale Deal: The Complete Dossier", Scroll.in

5. National Herald investigation on Reliance Defence formation timing