THE EPSTEIN FILES

Epstein document dump reveals a failure of accountability

The release of millions of documents has created a picture of Jeffrey Epstein that is by no means clear, and the heavy redactions have led to accusations of his powerful friends and co-conspirators being shielded.

By Hazel Friedman

22 Feb

Printed copies of the Jeffrey Epstein files in Miami, Florida, on 10 February 2026. According to official charges and court records released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Epstein orchestrated a sex-trafficking operation involving minors, leveraging his wealth and social standing to exploit victims over several decades. (Photo: Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA)

In 2019, Steve Bannon, then head of the extreme-right Breitbart media platform, conducted the only substantial, documented interview with Jeffrey Epstein. Filmed in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, the discussion ranged from finance and philosophy, to science and morality. Intended, apparently, to rehabilitate the convicted sex offender and paedophile’s public image, it instead provided a chilling glimpse into the mind of a malignant narcissist who, for decades, seemed to have the world at his size-12 feet.

Epstein argued that modern financial systems were deliberately opaque: “They make it sound complicated so the small guy doesn’t know what they do because they make so much money and they don’t do very much.”

He was referring to Wall Street powerbrokers – but also holding up a mirror to himself. A month after the interview, he would die by apparent suicide. When he called these systems “chaotic”, he was foreshadowing the disorder his own criminal legacy would unleash.

A sloppy dump

The US Department of Justice has released more than three million pages of Epstein-related documents of the estimated six million pages covering Epstein, his global trafficking operation, clients, co-conspirators, enablers and hundreds of victims.

Marketed as a landmark moment of transparency, the release has been marred by the alleged cover-up of those implicated in Epstein’s crimes. The files – about 180,000 images, 2,000 videos, emails, contact lists, FBI interview summaries, travel records and photographs – reveal the global magnitude of Epstein’s social, financial and professional ecosystem. Politicians, financiers, tech tycoons, academics, celebrities and fixers appear throughout. But decontextualised and unstructured, they offer no coherent map.

Many interactions are mundane: greetings, scheduling, logistical chatter. Others suggest influence-peddling or recruitment, but without clear criminal acts attached. The result is a fog of association where everything appears suspicious and little is provable. Dates are missing. Threads are incomplete. Images lack captions or chronology. Entire sections are blacked out. Any hopes of clarity are replaced with distortion.

P6 Hazel Epstein Files — An extract from the 2005 prepared FBI indictment against Jeffrey Epstein and several co-conspirators that was subseqently discarded. (Image: Screenshot)

The chaos intensified when Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell – serving her 20-year sentence at “Club Fed”, a minimum-security federal prison camp – testified in a closed-door deposition on 9 February. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, refusing to answer questions unless she received a pardon. It is yet another example of how perversely the power she once wielded could be distorted into victimhood.

Her non-testimony was followed by Attorney General Pam Bondi performing a cringeworthy, juvenile dance of defiance, deflection and deference to President Donald Trump before the House Judiciary Committee on 11 February.

Redaction failures

For survivors, the chaos has been agonising. Despite repeated assurances that identities would be protected, the Department of Justice release included files where names, email addresses and other intimate images and identifying details of victims – including minors – were visible.

Arguing that the website containing the files should be shut down, lawyers warned federal judges: “For the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, every hour matters. The harm is ongoing and irreversible.”

Even the face of an undercover FBI employee was left uncovered in a 2009 sting operation to obtain the black book of Epstein’s contacts from Alfredo Rodriguez, his former Palm Beach house manager. Rodriguez was subsequently sentenced to about 18 months in federal prison.

He succumbed to cancer shortly after his release in December 2014 – one of dozens of Epstein’s associates and victims who have died, some under suspicious circumstances.

The files reveal that as far back as 2005, the FBI and federal prosecutors in Florida were preparing a federal indictment against Epstein, including the names of several accomplices and co-conspirators.

It was ultimately derailed by a controversial plea deal in 2008. Epstein had been on law enforcement’s radar since 1996, due to reports from sisters Maria and Annie Farmer that could have unlocked the gilded fortress behind which hundreds of underage girls were being groomed, exploited and violated. Had action been taken, the dignity and safety of hundreds of future victims could have been preserved.

Instead, the saga demonstrates how power and wealth are protected by sharpie redactions and laws applied differently than to the rest of us.

In the unredacted files, there are reportedly more than a million references to Trump. He insists the documents absolve him, yet, even before his rise, allegations were repeatedly levelled at him and Epstein for horrific acts against minors during the 1990s.

Depositions, case files and affidavits have disappeared or been withdrawn; alleged victims have gone to ground.

If the three million-plus documents prove anything, it’s that Epstein was a master manipulator and predator, using wealth, power and charm to inflict repeated harm. Victims, like South African survivor Juliette Bryant and the late Virginia Giuffre, attested to abuse and the psychological manipulation that kept them silent for years.

Psychotherapist Riaan van Wyk explains: “Trauma bonding results in victims forming attachments to abusers due to fear, isolation and intermittent reinforcement… [it is] a survival mechanism mistaken for emotional connection.”

“The only way I can describe it is as a form of Stockholm syndrome,” recalls Bryant. “I was terrified of what he could do to me and my family, but I also craved his approval. He tore me down and built me up at will.”

Another South African-born survivor, requesting anonymity, recalls being lured by Epstein in the 1990s. She escaped, yet still suffers survivor’s guilt: “How and why did I manage to get away, when so many others after me suffered so much? If I had spoken out, perhaps I could have saved them from this horror.”

During the Bannon interview, Epstein displays remarkable disassociation and almost callous dismissal of the gravity of his conviction. Asked whether he was a “class 3 sexual predator” (the highest threat level), he shruggingly claims he is “tier 1” – downplaying the gravity of his crimes.

Sowing superhero seeds

Epstein was not just a predator, but also a performer. He perfected the calculus of stealth, charisma, co-option and control – how to quietly occupy rooms, command admiration and create ambiguity. But was he a puppet master or a slave to his own sense of inadequacy?

He certainly harboured superhero self-delusions, using fringe science – transhumanism, eugenics and genetic engineering – to pursue perverted Nietzschean fantasies of propagating his “superior genes”. He spoke openly about impregnating dozens of sex slaves at his New Mexico Zorro Ranch to “seed” the human race with his DNA.

But, as he confesses to Bannon, his Zorro fantasies failed. Purchased in February 1993, Zorro Ranch was intended to become a hub for scientists and politicians – a supposed haven for radioactive secrets. The New Mexico State Land Office also granted an agricultural land lease to the Zorro Trust – Epstein’s shell company. The purchase included leases on vast tracts of public land, making Epstein one of New Mexico’s largest private landowners.

Its location was also more than coincidental – in parts of northern New Mexico, conspiracy theories and fringe science thrive. The ranch was 110km from the Trinity Site, where the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb took place in July 1945 as part of the Manhattan Project.

In the Bannon interview, Epstein invokes abstract scientific rhetoric echoing the project, claiming he wants to build tools to understand “unexplainable” phenomena and attract top minds from legacy scientific environments. He speaks of using signal intelligence applied to genomes, cryptography and intelligence-level analysis to reshape both the human genome and global order.

Even years after his 2008 conviction, Epstein leveraged powerful associations to reflect scientific, philanthropic and financial prestige back to himself, making himself indispensable while remaining opaque.

Global reach, local impact

The Epstein files confirm his network was international, straddling North America, the UK, Western Europe, Asia and Scandinavia. His footprint in Africa, specifically South Africa, was much smaller, but Cape Town evidently became his predator’s paradise.

Epstein’s first recorded impact on South Africa came in 2002, when he ensnared aspiring model Bryant into his sex-trafficking network with promises of a Victoria’s Secret modelling contract.

This was during former US president Bill Clinton’s high-profile tour of Africa on HIV/Aids and development, accompanied by a celebrity entourage including Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker. Clinton’s speech at the University of the Western Cape received media coverage – but little attention was paid to Epstein, who owned the private jet ferrying the delegation. At the time, little was known of him outside the US.

How Jeffrey Epstein used South Africa as his hunting ground

February 3, 2026

Emails from the recent document dump reveal that from the mid-2000s Epstein was actively looking to buy property in the Atlantic Seaboard neighbourhood of Bantry Bay. He co-opted Petra Němcová – a famous Czech model who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – into becoming his intermediary with the Lance Real Estate company.

His sights were evidently set on a mansion owned by Michael Nunn, a South African billionaire mining entrepreneur. In 2008, Němcová forwarded Epstein pictures of the palatial home, including the “sexi” guest room, but the sale never went through. Realtor Lance Cohen confirmed the correspondence and that Nunn still owned the property.

Epstein’s outreach also extended to the now-defunct Pure Model Management in 2014, where he used his “talent-scouting skills” to lure young, impressionable models to his overseas lairs.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the sun-kissed coastline from Clifton to Camps Bay was one of his favourite hunting grounds, to which he repeatedly returned with his enablers in tow. More South African associates are emerging, as well as survivors, although the latter are still too traumatised to publicly reveal their identities.

While staying at the Cape Grace with Clinton in 2002, Epstein persuaded Michael Liffmann, a young food and beverage manager, to serve as his butler. Liffmann recalls working for Epstein “for approximately 10 months until mid-2003”. He says his responsibilities were limited to operational and hospitality functions, including managing Epstein’s New York residence, and accompanying him on flights to the Caribbean and Paris.

He says he never visited the New Mexico ranch, nor did he “witness or experience anything inappropriate or untoward”.

Liffmann later returned to the South African hotel industry, rising to director of pre-openings and portfolio development at Newmark Hotels & Resorts. He says he only became aware of the allegations against Epstein years later through media reports.

Emails also reveal connections between Epstein and the late hotel tycoon Sol Kerzner. They came via Sultan Bin Sulayem, chief executive of the Dubai-based DP World, who worked with Kerzner on Atlantis and Palm projects.

Andrea Kerzner, Sol’s oldest daughter, told Daily Maverick: “Neither myself nor any of my [three] siblings know of any connection between our father and Jeffrey Epstein. Furthermore, the only connection between our father and Sultan Bin Sulayem was corporate and purely professional.”

Public records show no evidence that Epstein cultivated African leaders for political leverage. His African engagements appear largely facilitative – acting as a fixer, brokering meetings, for example, between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara in connection with surveillance and internal security agreements. Africa was probably a strategic pit stop, not a project.

In a 2025 interview, Maxwell repeated Epstein’s claim that he made a substantial portion of his fortune by tracking stolen funds for African warlords. Yet the “master of the universe” was also a master fantasist – there are no public records verifying his self-styled African Rambo mythology.

The files do, however, suggest ties to intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Mossad. Most tellingly, Department of Justice documents reveal correspondence with Sergey Belyakov, a former Russian deputy minister of economic development and an FSB Academy graduate. The FSB is Russia’s principal domestic security and counterintelligence agency and the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

Belyakov allegedly assisted Epstein with visas, meetings and information on a Russian woman he claimed was blackmailing American businessmen.

File images of surveillance systems across Epstein properties also lend some credence to his alleged use of sexual kompromat as leverage to accumulate more wealth and power from the world’s richest and most influential figures.

Beyond the usual US elites with whom Epstein remained close until his 2019 death, two other leaders appear in the incomplete document dump: former South African president Jacob Zuma, whose planned intimate dinner with Epstein and a Russian model was first reported by Daily Maverick, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is referenced more than 1,000 times, mostly in media clippings. There is no verified proof that Epstein ever met Putin.

Penetrating the fog

If the goal was transparency, justice, truth and closure, the release of the Epstein files failed spectacularly. Instead of clarity, the dump complicated the story, revealing a man who built a web of access and ambiguity – and a system still struggling to untangle coincidence from complicity and association from evidence.

The cruellest irony is that the world now knows more about Epstein than ever before – yet the survivors still remain without answers. But they are determined never to let their histories be written by corrupt institutions, sycophants and enablers. They demand the final word. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.

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