NEW YORK, August 27. /TASS/. The FBI detained an Israeli agent who tried to secretly install listening devices and cameras in Jeffrey Epstein’s New York apartment, Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh wrote on his Substack blog.

"The agent apparently did well enough to be rewarded with a more challenging assignment in the following years - to fly to New York City, buy off-the-shelf listening devices and cameras and covertly install them in a room of Epstein’s apartment in New York City," Hersh wrote.

According to him, the agent was instructed to purchase standard equipment but instead used high-end equipment he had trained on while working for Mossad. Hersh wrote that the operation was compromised, and the FBI caught the agent.

Hersh wrote that US intelligence agencies may have concluded after the agent’s detention that Israel was aware of Epstein’s client list and the potential value of compromising material. "My source doesn’t know whether Epstein, in turn, provided the FBI with any of the tape recordings or videos. Did he go further, and supply both Israel and the FBI with films and recordings?" he wrote.

Hersh also argued that Epstein may have been an FBI source, which, in his view, helped him avoid serious consequences for a long time. The journalist called for a bipartisan US congressional commission to investigate Epstein’s ties to intelligence agencies and release materials withheld by the authorities.