Which brings me to the core of my post, where I would like to give kudos to the UK police. Not just for bagging the first royal in 400 years, but for asking the right question that was previously ignored: How did Jeffrey Epstein profit from trafficking underage girls to presumably a lot of important people? As far as we know, he didn't directly blackmail somebody like the former Prince Andrew as in "give me money, or I'll release compromising photos and videos of you with underage girls". Instead there seems to have been a much subtler interaction going on, in which Andrew gave Epstein insider information that he had due to his role as UK Special Representative for International Trade and Investment. It isn't hard to imagine how such information could be valuable to Epstein, who was a financier.

Since Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion in 1931, police knows that following the money trail is often a lot easier than proving the underlying crimes. Some of the released photos of Andrew in the Epstein files or before are suggestive, but there was apparently no hard evidence on which to convict him on any sex crimes, which are notoriously difficult to prove. Proving that Andrew had access to confidential information and gave that to Epstein will be a lot easier. And, somewhat ironically, the maximum UK prison sentence for "misconduct in public office" is higher than that for having sex with underage girls.

To me it seems very likely that a lot of the Americans who were invited to Jeffrey Epstein's island did also give him information that enabled him to do insider trading. But the Department of Justice apparently didn't pursue that line of inquiry up to now, possibly due to political pressure. The American guests of Jeffrey Epstein up to now only were punished by cancel culture, not by any legal proceedings. The UK looks morally superior here, being able to arrest the brother of the king.