From the Clubs of Ibiza to International Arms Dealmaker

The Italian Adventures of Epstein Class Supervillain Paolo Zampolli

This week, we at the Freakshow interviewed journalist Sacha Biazzo of RAI, Italy’s national public broadcasting network, about his investigation into Italian bon vivant and Trumpworld “envoy” Paolo Zampolli. A few weeks ago, Biazzo conducted a revealing – and ultimately contentious – sit-down interview in Italian with Zampolli. He also spoke with Zampolli’s ex, Amanda Ungaro, along with dozens of acquaintances, friends, colleagues, and at least one relative.

Biazzo has produced, in Italian, a three-part series on Zampolli, packed with eye-popping information. Zampolli’s maternal aunt told Biazzo that Paolo – born in 1970, a scion of business dynasties on both sides – was a troubled, drug-using only child who never graduated from high school, dropping out at age 13. Other sources described how he left his hometown of Milan, drifted into the wealthy Eurotrash dens of Ibiza, and learned the modeling trade from Elite Model Agency impresario and serial abuser John Casablancas, then later from trafficker and MC2 Model Management owner Jean-Luc Brunel.

After encountering Casablancas and Brunel, Zampolli started his own New York agency, ID Model Management, later used by Epstein for access to girls. Epstein’s only known comment about him, however, appears in a 2011 email: “Be careful, zampoli is trouble. Lots” [sic]. In one DOJ file, an interview with an Epstein associate/victim, marked “under protective order,” mentions “Zempoli” since Epstein found her during an ID model casting.

Zampolli’s business network included the Polish-born Michel Adam Lisowski, who lived in the same Paris apartment building as Epstein, created FashionTV, and was later convicted of sexual assault in France and Israel, along with other men. All of Zampolli’s sketchy associations are laid out in American Prospect’s deep dive into the global underworld of predatory sleazeballs.

Zampolli, as is well known, takes credit for having “scouted” the 20-something Melania Knauss in Milan, bringing her to the U.S.A., and introducing her to Trump. Various people, including Amanda Ungaro and Michael Wolff, have disputed this story.

Milan in the early 1990s was teeming with young beautiful women from the former Soviet Union – often inexperienced and vulnerable to exploitation. In Melania’s official history, there is almost no trace of her modeling career anywhere in Europe prior to meeting Trump in New York.

Amanda Ungaro told Biazzo (and reiterated to us last month) that she believes Melania and Trump have some kind of “pact” with Zampolli related to his knowledge of the modeling underworld.

Biazzo backed this up with an audio recording of Zampolli speaking to a friend in Italy over the phone, bragging that the Trumps promised him their full support after he helped Melania win a 2016 libel suit against the Daily Mail and a Slovenian journalist who claimed she had been an escort. In the recording aired by RAI, Zampolli – claiming to quote Melania – says in Italian: “Paolo don’t worry, you have our back, everything that happened we will protect... we protect you.”

But there’s more.

Biazzo also reported on less salacious, though equally troubling matters that have received attention in Italy, but not yet in the U.S. Barely a month after his second inauguration, Trump named Zampolli his special envoy to Italy – a non-official, non-diplomatic post with no State Department oversight, invented for his old pal. Envoys are typically appointed for war negotiations, humanitarian crises or other sensitive diplomatic missions.

By February 2025, Zampolli was bouncing around Italy – much to the confusion of local officials – proclaiming his new title and meeting with far-right leader Matteo Salvini. In March, the party boy with the mystery portfolio was courting major Italian arms manufacturers, trying to entice them to invest in the United States while pushing for U.S. entry into the Euro-Japanese GCAP fighter plane program – a move that would have benefitted sixth-generation military jet supplier Lockheed.

No Italian institution had been officially informed by the United States of his appointment. “Zampolli? Zampolli who?” Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, reportedly said when asked by journalists.

That confusion did little to disrupt Zampolli’s special relationship with the one man who mattered. He was soon given a promotion to another Trump-manufactured title: U.S. Special Representative for Global Partnerships. His “projects” have included making a $20 billion deal with Uzbekistan for Boeing jets, which he shorthanded publicly as “$20 billion in twenty minutes.” He boasted to the Italian press: “I am available for anything the President wishes in the area. As the President says, ‘Just call me.’”

In Italy, Zampolli is seen as a caricature from the fleshpots of the upper class, a creature at home in the felonious “Bunga Bunga” era of Silvio Berlusconi – who he sold his family business to back in the 90s. One of his best friends is Giuseppe Cipriani, restaurateur and grandson of the founder of the famous Harry’s Bar in Venice. The younger Cipriani’s partner, Nicole Minetti, is a former Ibiza DJ who served prison time for her role in trafficking young women in the scandal that brought down Berlusconi.

Minetti and Cipriani are currently all over the Italian media for a scandal involving suspected trafficking at a ranch Cipriani owns in Punta del Este, Uruguay, called “The Gin Tonic.”

Throughout 2024, before Trump’s re-election, Zampolli fed his Instagram with snaps of himself at Cipriani restaurants around the world, the lone male at tables surrounded by beautifully dressed young women.

Biazzo struck a nerve when he asked Zampolli about Victoria Drake, an American woman who has publicly accused him of drugging and raping her in New York. On camera, Zampolli flies into a rage, stumbles over his words and calls her a “whore” in Italian. Drake has said she filed a complaint with the NYPD, but that Zampolli’s diplomatic immunity appeared to shield him.

Zampolli got in on the diplomatic immunity game starting in 2011, when he presented himself as a diplomat in a luxury magazine, despite his UN title being completely honorific and not connected to any tangible position. He later persuaded the leaders of the island of Dominica that he was enough of a player that he could successfully represent their interests, and they granted him an actual UN ambassadorship. That affiliation opened up a whole new revenue stream: the island’s passport-selling program. In one case that ended up in court, Zampolli allegedly demanded a $7 million commission from a Dubai-based company for helping finance a luxury hotel in which 800 “family passports” were sold for a casual $195 million.

Now, with Trump’s imprimatur, Zampolli is jetting around on the American taxpayer’s dime, shilling for U.S. weapons manufacturers. One could argue there is no better mascot for the moral and legal cesspool that is the military industrial complex than a habitue of the Epstein demimonde in which young women are prey and referred to as “whores” should they complain.

Zampolli is now brokering multi-billion-dollar “deals” with no oversight and no official State nor Commerce Department portfolio.

We have questions.

Who is paying him and how much? Are U.S. taxpayers financing his jaunts? Has he been vetted and security-cleared? Is his position subject to the 2021 law putting envoys under certain restrictions and requiring Congressional consent? Is he receiving commissions similar to the one he extracted from the Dominica hotel deal?

House Oversight, please subpoena him.

---

Join COURIER and 3.14 Action on June 11 for Facts vs. Fiction: The Fight for Science in American Democracy.

Misinformation isn’t just noise. It’s shaping policy decisions that impact healthcare costs, public health, and everyone’s lives. This live conversation will examine what’s at stake when facts are ignored and what changes when experts lead with evidence. From lowering costs to protecting access to care, we will break down how science-driven leadership delivers real results and why scientific integrity is essential to democracy.

Hear directly from:

• Senator John Hickenlooper, Former Governor of Colorado

• Dr. Vin Gupta, Physician + Medical Analyst

• Representative Emily Gregory, Florida House of Representatives (HD-87)

• Dr. Paul A. Offit, Director, Vaccine Education Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

• Shaughnessy Naughton, 314 Action President

Stay tuned for more speaker announcements, and don’t miss this conversation. RSVP today!