Daniel Siad, the 69-year-old modelling scout named more than 2,000 times in the declassified Jeffrey Epstein records, was found dead at his home in Colombes on the evening of Monday 20 July 2026. Siad is the second French modelling figure tied to the Epstein case to die before facing trial, after modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel was found hanged in a Paris prison cell in February 2022.

The Nanterre prosecutor's office confirmed the death on Wednesday 22 July, said an investigation into the cause had been opened that Monday evening and said a post-mortem examination would be carried out. Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre judicial court, issued the statement. Investigators from the Hauts-de-Seine judicial police were handed the file.

Siad had never been questioned. Paris prosecutors had been running a trafficking investigation that included him since February, had placed him under telephone interception and had told reporters as recently as this week that the surveillance had not yielded enough to justify an arrest. His name was known to every survivor who had spent the spring reading the U.S. Justice Department release, and it was attached to no charge on the day he died.

Accounts of who found the body differ, Le Parisien reported that Siad's 28-year-old flatmate discovered him in the kitchen and alerted neighbours, that emergency crews attended and that he died at the scene. His lawyer, Menya Arab-Tigrine, told ABC News the body was found by the sister of a neighbour. Arab-Tigrine said she believed her client had suffered a heart attack and was waiting on the autopsy report. Prosecutors have released nothing on the circumstances beyond the fact of the inquiry, have not said whether foul play is suspected and have not given a timetable for the post-mortem findings.

"He is dead and he was innocent," Arab-Tigrine told Agence France-Presse, linking the death to "the strain" of months of publicity. She claims Siad had offered to speak to French authorities and that the offer was rebuffed, and that the "waiting and anxiety" would have played a part if the autopsy returns a heart attack.

What the files show

Siad appears in the records the U.S. Justice Department published on 30 January 2026 under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law President Trump signed on 19 November 2025 after unanimous passage in both chambers of Congress. The department released more than 3 million additional pages that day, along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images across 12 data sets, bringing the total production to roughly 3.5 million pages. Siad's name appears more than 2,000 times across that material, according to BFMTV. Reporting elsewhere puts the count at more than 1,000 separate documents. Both figures are in circulation and they are counting different things.

The correspondence runs from the late 2000s to at least 2017 and reads as a supply relationship. Siad scouted in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, South Africa, Spain, Morocco, Cuba and France, and forwarded photographs, profiles and travel details to Epstein. In June 2009 he sent seven photographs of a 20-year-old Latvian woman with a note observing that she looked younger. In a July 2014 message he listed two women from Sweden, one from Slovakia, two from France and a Russian woman, complaining that Epstein had failed to appear as arranged. Epstein replied that he would cover the expenses and asked for names and details. A follow-up message from Siad referred to further girls in Scandinavia and France aged between 15 and 17.

"I feel like fisherman some time I cache quick, some time no fish," Siad wrote in July 2014. The same message named girls aged 15, 16 and 17.

Epstein asked in a 2012 message what new girls were available, and in a 2014 message whether there was anything worth coming to Paris for. In 2018, nearly a decade after Epstein's conviction, Siad wrote that he was looking for a "good looking young assistant" for him. Another message forwarded a photograph of a woman Siad described as polite and as having potential either as a model or as an assistant. Files released by the Justice Department show Epstein paid Siad tens of thousands of dollars.

Stan Pottinger, a lawyer acting for Epstein's accusers, told a New York prosecutor in May 2016 that Jean-Luc Brunel had described Siad as a scout or recruiter of girls for Epstein. A Justice Department file records that description. Siad and Brunel exchanged emails and Siad forwarded modelling profiles and travel arrangements involving young women.

Siad's account

Siad gave interviews in the months before he died, to the Swedish daily Expressen in February, to BFMTV on 8 May and to CNN in June. His position was consistent across all three. He claimed he had introduced women to a man he took for a legitimate industry figure, that he had no knowledge of what happened afterwards and that Epstein had exploited his trust.

"I trusted him and believed this guy was a professional person," Siad told CNN, claiming that nobody he had introduced to Epstein had come back to him reporting harm.

He said Epstein had assured him after the 2008 conviction that nothing of the kind would happen again to anyone Siad referred. He also said he had believed Epstein to be a casting director for Victoria's Secret and for the modelling agency MC2. CNN reported that it found no evidence supporting that belief. Siad continued to work with Epstein after the 2008 guilty plea for "procuring a minor for prostitution", as did other figures in the industry who kept inviting him to fashion events, allowing him to associate with their companies, and exposing women and girls to danger.

Siad claimed that he had never committed a crime and was willing to speak to investigators in any country that wanted him. There is no indication that he actually reached out to anyone.

Karlsson

Ebba P. Karlsson, a former Swedish model now 56 and living in the United States, filed the first criminal complaint against Siad on 10 February 2026 at the Paris prosecutor's office, reporting rape and human trafficking. Her account, given to AFP and to RTL Nieuws, places the events in 1990, when she was 20. She met Siad in Stockholm. He told her she was beautiful and could have a modelling career in France. She travelled with him. The promised work in Monaco did not exist, a villa in Cannes was shut up, and she reported that he raped her in a garden shed by the pool.

Karlsson did not know her attacker's name for 36 years. She identified him in February 2026 from the declassified Epstein files, and has said she felt physically ill on recognising him.

"He was very close to being arrested," Karlsson told AFP after his death, describing years of work to reach that point.

Karlsson's complaint also reported that Siad went on to introduce her to Gérald Marie, then European head of Elite Model Management, whom she has separately accused of rape. At least six women have filed legal complaints in France reporting Gérald Marie of rape and human trafficking in the 1980s and 1990s.

French media reported that at least five women had reported Siad for rape or trafficking by the time he died. Three have described the approach in public. Each account begins with a meeting at or near a modelling agency, a compliment, an offer of introduction to a man said to hold the keys to a career.

Anya

A woman the BBC identified under the pseudonym Anya left Russia looking for better work and had modelled for Fendi and Chanel before the introduction that changed her life. She was in her early twenties when she visited a Paris modelling agency and met Siad. He complimented her intelligence, a compliment she said was not typical of the industry, and then offered to introduce her to a friend with fashion connections, the friend was Epstein.

Anya has described what followed as a set-up and called Siad "essentially a professional trafficker."

She became one of Epstein's assistants and says the years that followed were years of manipulation and, in her own word, abuse, held in place by psychological dependency rather than by locked doors: promises of career progress, money and access to influential people, and the isolation that came with all three. She said she had never spoken about it publicly while Epstein was alive, that she is still working to reconcile herself to having been abused for years, and that she came forward in the hope other women in the same position would seek help.

The BBC published her account on 18 July 2026. Siad's lawyer said before publication that he was not available to comment. He was found dead two days later.

Svetlana Pozhidaeva

Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a Russian-born model, was working across Europe and earning as much as 3,000 dollars a day when she decided to try the U.S. market. She met Siad at a Paris modelling agency. He introduced her to Epstein, who told her he could open New York to her. She signed with MC2 Model Management, the agency Jean-Luc Brunel founded with a million dollars of Epstein's money, and her career collapsed almost immediately. She then became Epstein's personal assistant, a role she says involved little actual work and years of abuse. MC2 continued to sponsor her U.S. visa while she was working for Epstein rather than modelling. Justice Department emails released this year support her account of the employment arrangement.

Pozhidaeva has described Epstein as having built an ecosystem staffed by scouts, photographers and agency owners, and has said his standing in that world was part of what made her trust him.

"If it wasn't for him, my life would have unfolded completely differently," she said of Siad on the day his death was confirmed.

She added that she had wanted an investigation, a resolution and some measure of closure, and that his death had removed the possibility of holding him to account.

Juliette G.

Juliette G., a former French model who is now 43 and has asked that her surname be withheld, met Siad in 2004, when she was 21. She has accused him of grooming her for introduction to men who might abuse her, and has told AFP that she can identify the discrete stages by which she was moved toward that point, and that manipulation of this kind works by testing how far a young woman will yield at each step.

Siad referred her to Epstein in New York. Juliette says she was flown there and taken to a bedroom, where Epstein groped her and told her that her body did not meet modelling standards. He said she should get in shape so that he could introduce her to agencies. In the interval, she says, he offered her escort work.

Juliette has given a statement to police in Paris. She said Siad's death has removed a link in the chain that could have helped establish what happened and identify who was responsible, and that he had represented a route to finding out.

She told CNN, "Epstein was just one of the dangers I used to face."

Where the case stood on the day he died

Paris prosecutors opened two investigations on 4 February 2026, one into sexual offences and one into financial wrongdoing, each assigned to specialist magistrates. Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, announced them on France Info and appealed for women who had never spoken to come forward.

"These publications will inevitably reactivate the trauma of certain victims," she said.

Beccuau also said material from older investigations would be revisited, a reference to the closed Brunel file.

The trafficking investigation was run through the Paris office specialising in human trafficking. Siad was one of the people Beccuau said in May could be questioned, though she noted at the time that nobody had yet been interviewed because the inquiry remained at an early stage.

By this week the prosecutor's office reported that 24 women had come forward or been identified following its public appeal, that at least 16 had been interviewed and that further interviews were scheduled. On Siad specifically the office said special investigative techniques including telephone intercepts had been used, and that the product had not so far justified an immediate arrest. He was never placed under formal investigation, the mise en examen threshold at which a French magistrate decides the evidence is serious enough to proceed, a stage the file reached with Brunel in 2020 and never reached with Siad.

The case targeting Siad has now been dropped, as French law requires on the death of a suspect. The wider investigation into rape trafficking linked to Epstein, who kept a flat in Paris and travelled to France often, continues.

Jean-Luc Brunel, dead in a cell before trial

Jean-Luc Brunel ran modelling agencies for four decades and sat at the centre of the French strand of the Epstein file before Siad did. He built his career at Karin Models, co-founded Next in 1988 and launched MC2 Model Management in 2005, the year after Epstein wired one million dollars to an offshore account in his name in September 2004. He met Ghislaine Maxwell in the 1980s and she introduced him to Epstein.

CBS broadcast an investigation into Brunel on 60 Minutes in December 1988, in which models described how he had used the promise of careers to assault them. The report ran internationally. Eileen Ford cut ties with him. No prosecution followed and he kept working for another 32 years.

Thysia Huisman, a Dutch former model, reported to French police in September 2019 that Brunel had drugged and raped her in 1991, when she was 18. She has said publicly that she came forward past the statute of limitations in the hope that others would follow, and that 11 more women did. Virginia Giuffre stated in court filings that Brunel used modelling work as cover to traffic girls and that Epstein had boasted of sleeping with more than 1,000 of Brunel's models. Brunel denied everything, and in 2015 sued Epstein over what he said was reputational damage from the publicity.

French police arrested Brunel on 16 December 2020 at Charles de Gaulle airport as he tried to board a flight to Dakar. Immigration officers flagged his passport against a wanted-for-questioning entry. A magistrate charged him two days later with the rape of minors over the age of 15 and with sexual harassment. The prosecutor's office said at the time that no human trafficking charge was laid, that the magistrate found the evidence insufficient to rule on that count and that Brunel was not acquitted of it. On 29 June 2021 he was formally indicted over the drugging and rape of a 17-year-old girl in the 1990s. A second woman came forward that September. He was briefly released in late 2021, then returned to custody on an appeal court ruling.

Brunel was found dead in his cell at La Santé prison on 19 February 2022, aged 75, after 14 months in detention. A source close to the investigation told AFP he had been found hanged. Prosecutors did not confirm the manner of death at the time. His lawyers said he had killed himself and described a man crushed by the machinery of a media and judicial system. French law closed his case on his death, absent other suspects in the same proceedings.

"It makes me angry, because I've been fighting for years," Huisman told the Associated Press that day. Anne-Claire Le Jeune, the Paris barrister representing her and other complainants, said her clients had been deprived of a trial and of formal recognition of their status as victims.

Marie, and a case closed on the clock

Gérald Marie headed Elite Model Management in Europe until he resigned in 1999. Lisa Brinkworth, then a BBC journalist working undercover with Donald MacIntyre on an investigation into abuse in the modelling industry, alleges that Marie sexually assaulted her at a dinner in Milan in 1998. She says she told her superiors immediately and was advised against filing a complaint so as not to compromise the investigation. She filed in Paris in 2020. Three former models, Karlsson among them, supported the complaint with accounts of rape or sexual assault. Prosecutors closed the investigation in February 2023 on statute of limitations grounds. Brinkworth appealed.

Fifteen women delivered a letter to Beccuau on 19 March 2026, asking that the Epstein investigations be used to reopen the Marie file. Karlsson and Brinkworth handed it over in person. The signatories, of British, Dutch, USian and Swedish nationality, said they held court documents and emails indicating collaboration between Marie, Brunel and Epstein, and connecting them to the MC2 and Elite agencies. Brinkworth now represents the collective Victorious Angels We Rise, which she and Karlsson founded. Marie has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has never been convicted of any offence.

"It feels like victims are being denied justice," Brinkworth said after Siad's death, adding that the failure of the Paris prosecutor's office to act against a close associate of Epstein facing multiple rape and trafficking allegations was beyond comprehension, and calling for urgent investigation of everyone connected to Epstein facing similar accusations.

Investigations outside France

Polish prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation after reviewing the released files, and said on 11 March 2026 that they would seek information and evidence from two other European countries. A source told Reuters the requests would go to France and Sweden. Their working suspicion is that women and girls were recruited in Poland for work abroad under false pretences, then moved out of the country and handed to others for sexual exploitation. Files reviewed by Reuters show Siad reporting to Epstein on scouting trips through Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and referring to his cooperation with Brunel.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on 3 February 2026 that Poland would examine possible links between Epstein and Russian intelligence and set up an analytical task force, saying prosecutors could open a formal investigation if evidence emerged that Polish minors had been exploited. Polish media reported that Siad was born in Algeria and moved to Sweden at 23. He held Swedish citizenship alongside French residency.

Jack Lang, the 86-year-old former culture minister, stepped down as head of the Arab World Institute in Paris earlier this month amid suspicions of tax fraud, and the financial prosecutor's office opened an investigation into alleged links between Lang, his daughter Caroline Lang and Epstein through an offshore company registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot referred allegations involving a senior diplomat, Fabrice Aidan, to prosecutors and opened an administrative investigation and disciplinary procedure. Aidan's name appears more than 200 times in the files, including exchanges dating to 2010, when he worked at the United Nations, that suggest he shared diplomatic documents with Epstein. His lawyer, Jade Dousselin, said her client denies any wrongdoing and called for the presumption of innocence to be respected.

The document release behind the French inquiries

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the 30 January release at a Justice Department news conference, more than a month after the deadline Congress had set. He said the department had sorted more than 6 million records, that women depicted in photographs and videos had been redacted with the exception of Ghislaine Maxwell, that men were redacted only where it was impossible to obscure a woman otherwise and that the department's obligations under the Act would be complete once it filed its final report and published redaction justifications in the Federal Register.

Roughly half the identified material remains unpublished. Representative Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said the department intended to withhold about 50 per cent of the files while claiming full compliance, and noted that the release followed months of resistance to a committee subpoena issued on 5 August. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence following her 2021 conviction for her role in the scheme to sexually exploit and abuse minor girls.

The state of the French file

Nobody has been convicted of anything in the French investigation of this case. Brunel was charged and died before trial. Marie was investigated and the file was closed on time limits, with an appeal outstanding. Siad was named across thousands of pages, faced at least five complaints, was placed under telephone interception and was never charged, never formally placed under investigation and never interviewed.

The Nanterre autopsy will establish how Daniel Siad died. The Paris investigation that included him was dropped on his death; the wider inquiry into rape trafficking linked to Epstein remains open.