Andrew’s fall: after arrest and lost titles, an FBI archive tip

Former Prince Andrew, stripped of his titles and arrested in February, is back in the spotlight as an anonymous tip from a 2020 FBI report, claiming he watched Ghislaine Maxwell abuse a girl, recirculates. The claim is unverified.

The past year has brought one blow after another to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s reputation. In 2025, King Charles III removed his brother’s title of prince, and in February 2026 Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Now an anonymous tip from FBI archives, first reported by Britain’s Mirror in February, is circulating online again.

The tip appears in a July 2020 FBI report included in the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the U.S. Justice Department. The tipster alleged that in the mid-1990s at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, Ghislaine Maxwell gave electric shocks to a girl aged 6 to 8, and that Andrew and other men were present.

What the document does not show

This is not an investigative finding but an unverified tip. The files contain nothing showing that the FBI checked it or acted on it, and the "shock collar" wording in the Mirror headline has not been confirmed. Andrew denies all wrongdoing connected to Epstein and Maxwell.

The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover Building headquarters in Washington

Maxwell herself was convicted in the U.S. in 2021 of trafficking minors and is serving a 20-year sentence.

Where Andrew’s case stands

Released on the day of his February arrest, Andrew remains under investigation. In October he won an interim victory when police accepted that the warrants used to search his homes were unlawful, with a court yet to decide the fate of the evidence. Around the same time he received compensation for giving up the Royal Lodge lease early.