The State Police of Latvia have initiated criminal proceedings regarding the latest materials published last week in the case of convicted U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in which Latvia is mentioned as one of the possible locations for the recruitment of underage girls.
According to the State Police, on Wednesday—after coordination with the Prosecutor’s Office—the Department for Combating Organised, Serious and Serial Crime launched criminal proceedings in connection with materials published on the official website of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The materials concern the criminal network created by Epstein and the recruitment of several individuals, including the possible recruitment of Latvian citizens to the United States for sexual exploitation.
The criminal proceedings are currently classified under the Criminal Law article related to human trafficking.
Police declined to provide further comments.
As previously reported, the newly released Epstein case materials indicate that Latvia was mentioned as one of the possible locations for recruiting underage girls, Latvian Television’s programme Panorāma reported on the 1st of February.
Latvia is mentioned in the documents in various contexts more than 500 times,
while Riga is mentioned more than 800 times. The released files include the names of several Latvian models and modelling agencies and reveal Epstein’s personal correspondence with Latvian girls. Latvian women may also have served as his assistants.
Latvia is first mentioned in 2001, when one of Epstein’s associates discussed an invitation to visit Latvia allegedly from the prime minister at the time. In 2001, an anonymous sender wrote that he had received a personal invitation from the Latvian prime minister to visit the country and pay a courtesy visit, asking in the letter whether fishing was practiced in Latvia. The prime minister in 2001 was Andris Bērziņš.
Former Prime Minister Bērziņš denied to Latvian Television that he had invited Epstein to visit Latvia, while telling the Delfi news portal that he had never been involved in fishing.
According to Latvian Television, most of the Latvia-related entries in the Epstein case materials date back to 2007.
They mention several Latvian models and agencies,
suggesting that modelling agencies may have been one of the main points of contact between Epstein’s circle and Latvian women. Numerous Latvia-related entries include Latvian girls’ passports, airline tickets to and from Riga, hotel reservations in Riga—most frequently at the Grand Palace Hotel, which appears in 67 entries—shipments of various gifts, as well as personal correspondence between Epstein and Latvian girls.
One of Epstein’s closest associates, Jean-Luc Brunel, an agent for international modelling agencies, served for several years on the jury of the “Baltic Beauty” modelling contest organised by the Natalie modelling agency, which featured girls aged 14 and older. In 2011, the investigative programme de facto reported that an investigation was under way into whether Brunel may have supplied Epstein with underage girls. At the time, the head of the Natalie agency, Ēriks Meisāns—who is also mentioned in the correspondence—denied being aware of this.
Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice published at least three million additional pages related to the Epstein case, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
Epstein was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls and of human trafficking
for the purpose of sexual exploitation. He never stood trial, having committed suicide at a federal detention centre in New York in August 2019, one day after documents were published providing deeper insight into the sex trafficking network he operated between 2002 and 2005.
Following political pressure from Republicans, U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation last November giving the Department of Justice 30 days to release most Epstein-related case materials.
After missing the 19 December deadline to publish all documents, the Department of Justice announced that it had assigned hundreds of lawyers to review the materials to determine what should be redacted in order to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims and avoid jeopardising ongoing investigations.
The number of documents under review has grown to approximately six million, including duplicates, the department said.
Before Christmas, the Department of Justice released thousands of documents, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, and other materials. Many of these had already been publicly available or were heavily redacted.
Read also: “We need specific names”: police on the investigation of the Epstein case in Latvia