A criminal case will most likely be initiated in Latvia to verify materials related to the case of convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, State Police Chief Armands Ruks said on Tuesday in an interview with TV3.
The State Police have currently launched a review of the latest Epstein case materials published last week, in which Latvia is mentioned as one of the possible locations for the recruitment of underage girls.
Ruks believes that a criminal case will need to be opened in order to verify the information contained in the materials, as this would allow investigative actions to be carried out more effectively and enable international cooperation, since a significant amount of data is currently anonymised, while “we need details and specific first and last names.”
The police chief noted that the statute of limitations has not expired for a number of potential crimes and therefore called on people who may have been victims of Epstein’s human trafficking network to come forward and contact the police.
Ruks could not recall US investigators having approached Latvian authorities for additional information
during earlier stages of the Epstein investigation, which was active many years ago.
The head of the State Police is convinced that law enforcement in Latvia has managed to reduce crimes such as human trafficking and pimping, but that crime cannot be completely eradicated. Unfortunately, victims of human trafficking do not always recognise themselves as victims or are willing to cooperate with the police, Ruks observed.
As reported, the State Police are aware of the information made public in the Epstein case and are currently verifying it, collecting and analysing the data, the LETA news agency learned from the State Police Public Relations Department. Cooperation is also taking place with other Latvian institutions, and information will be requested through international cooperation mechanisms.
The Latvian Prosecutor’s Office will delegate a prosecutor to participate in the review carried out by the State Police, LETA learned from the prosecution service.
In the latest Epstein case materials published on Friday,
Latvia is mentioned as one of the possible locations for the recruitment of underage girls,
Latvian Television reported.
Latvia is mentioned in the documents in various contexts more than 500 times, and Riga more than 800 times. The released files mention the names of several Latvian models and modelling agencies, and also 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 discusses 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. In 2001, the prime minister 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 engaged in the fishing mentioned in the email.
According to Latvian Television,
most of the Latvian 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. The 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 to the programme that he had been aware of this.
The U.S. Department of Justice published at least three million additional pages related to the Epstein case last Friday. More than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images were also released.
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.
Yielding to political pressure from Republicans, Trump signed legislation last November giving the Department of Justice 30 days to release the majority of 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 needed to 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: Latvia named among possible recruitment locations for underage girls in newly released Epstein case materials