Jeffrey Epstein may have blackmailed his high-profile friends with secret recordings of them receiving massages, Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, has suggested.

Mr Lutnick described the late paedophile as the “greatest blackmailer ever” and suggested he used clandestine clips to secure his short prison sentence in 2008.

There is a widely held belief that Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, sex trafficked underage women to a circle of high-profile associates. Conspiracy theorists think the financier was murdered by the “deep state” to stop these names from being made public.

The Trump administration maintains there is no Epstein client list and that he died by suicide.

Mr Lutnick, who used to live next door to the late financier, broke with the party line to suggest famous friends of Epstein “participated” in his erotic massages.