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Daniel Siad, the modelling scout with close ties to Epstein / Photo: Martin BUREAU - AFP
Daniel Siad, the modelling scout with close ties to Epstein
Hundreds of emails containing photographs of young women from around the world suggest modelling scout Daniel Siad may have been a significant recruiter for convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to public documents reviewed by AFP.
Siad, the subject of a rape complaint in France, claimed on X that he is blameless, but appears in more than 1,000 documents in the latest batch of declassified files from the Epstein case published by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
They include exchanges between him and Epstein, which often revolve around women and are interspersed with apparent requests for money.
"In This busyness I feel like a fisherman some time I cache quick, some time no fish," Siad wrote to Epstein in 2014 about women he had identified.
AFP has been unable to reach Siad since Monday, when he was first named in the French media in connection with the sprawling Epstein case.
Speaking to France's national broadcaster France TV, Siad -- who holds a Swedish passport, according to the documents, and said on X that he is from Algeria and born French -- claimed Epstein had "used (his) trust", adding he was not "in a position to know that this man was dangerous".
"I have nothing to blame myself for," he said in a video posted on X and relayed by BFMTV.
In the video, he denies any ties with Epstein's crimes and presents himself as "from Kabylia (in Algeria), born French, and a Swedish citizen".
- Girls' ages frequently mentioned -
A Swedish former model, Ebba Karlsson, filed a complaint in France on Tuesday accusing Siad of rape and human trafficking after recognising him in a photo from the Epstein files.
She says she was lured by Siad under the pretext of a career opportunity, before finding herself trapped in southern France in 1990 at the age of 20, AFP learned from a source close to the case.
Karlsson told BFMTV she had received death threats from the talent scout.
The earliest emails contained in the documents released by the DOJ date back to 2009, a year after Epstein was convicted in Florida of procuring a child for prostitution.
Epstein and Siad exchanged messages until 2019, shortly before the financier's arrest and subsequent suicide in jail while facing charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.
In his correspondence with Epstein, Siad referred to young women and teenage girls he had found, often in Eastern Europe or Scandinavia, and attached photographs.
The girls' ages are frequently mentioned.
A June 2009 email from Siad to Epstein with seven photos attached read: "I just found an amizinng One she is 20 years old but she looks younger from Latvia."
Siad referred to "at least five" potential recruits aged "16 and 17" and a 15-year-old French girl, in a July 2014 message.
Siad appears to have also worked in the early 2010s for a Thai foundation created by Mom Luang Rajadarasri Jayankura, who presents herself as a descendant of Thailand's royal family.
The DOJ documents show he sought Epstein's help to register the organisation as a non-profit in the United States.
- Bank transfers -
The documents reviewed by AFP indicate Epstein regularly transferred money to Siad, including payments of several thousand euros.
In 2018, Epstein forwarded Siad's bank details to his accountant Richard Kahn with the note: "5 year loan for 25k dollars".
In July 2010, Siad suggested Epstein join him in Ibiza to meet a scout named Tigran, who was interested in doing business with the disgraced financier, according to emails.
Tigran "has the most incredible top models on stand by", read an email from Siad, with the subject line "Hello from Ibiza".
The documents also reveal links between Siad and former French modelling agency executive Jean-Luc Brunel, who was accused of sexual abuse by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre.
Brunel was found dead in detention in 2022.
Correspondence released by US courts in late January suggested Brunel had identified Siad as a recruiter of girls and women for Epstein.
Stan Pottinger, a lawyer for several Epstein victims, sent a 2016 message to a New York district prosecutor, detailing information received from Brunel.
"Yesterday I spoke of Daniel Siad, whom Jean Luc Brunel describes as a 'scout' or recruiter of girls and/or women for J. Epstein," Pottinger wrote.
The mere mention of a person's name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply wrongdoing.
T.Cusumano--INP
