People in Jeffrey Epstein’s network continue to die. On Monday, the Swedish citizen Daniel Siad, originally from Algeria, was found dead in his home in Colombes, outside Paris.
Siad was engaged by Epstein to recruit young women for modelling and secretarial assignments, among other things.
So far, he had not been charged with any offence by the French prosecution authorities, but in February this year he was reported to the police by former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson over an alleged rape in Cannes, said to have taken place 36 years ago.
Four other women have also made allegations of various forms of abuse, according to Reuters.
Siad denied all the allegations but, according to France24, wanted to be questioned and give his version of events.
The circumstances surrounding his death are unknown. Some media outlets report that the cause of death is allegedly cardiac arrest.
Daniel Siad was a prolific recruiter of young girls in both Norway and Sweden for Jeffrey Epstein (left). Photo: Department of Justice/House Oversight Committee
The public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre, France, has stated that an investigation has been opened and that a post-mortem examination will be carried out.
Recruited Norwegian teenagers
Siad operated as a recruiter for Epstein in several countries, including Norway, Sweden and Denmark, using the modelling agency “What’s Up Management” as a front.
In February this year, Document’s Espen Teigen examined Siad’s activities in Scandinavia during the period 2007–2017 in detail, using released communications with Epstein from the American Epstein archive. Siad’s name is mentioned almost 2,000 times in the material.
In 2015, for example, Siad emailed Epstein about a 15-year-old model and her friend whom he had met in Paris. Epstein replied that they were “too old”.
Another exchange revealed that Siad had recruited at least five girls in Scandinavia who were already “ready”, in addition to girls aged 16 and 17 who “would be ready next year”.
Emails published in the Epstein archive show that the recurring theme between Daniel Siad and the American sex offender was young girls.
In February 2022, another of Epstein’s modelling scouts in France, with whom the sex offender had worked closely since the 1980s, was found dead in his prison cell in Paris.
Jean-Luc Brunel had been held in pre-trial detention since 2020 while under investigation for, among other offences, rape and the trafficking of minors. The official account is that he had made several previous suicide attempts before ultimately succeeding in taking his own life by hanging.
Brunel founded the modelling agency Karin Models in Paris and launched MC2 Model Management in New York with financing from Epstein. Siad worked partly with Brunel and referred many of the women he came into contact with to the Frenchman.
In a recent video interview with CNN, Siad maintained his innocence and claimed that Epstein had told him he was a casting director at Victoria’s Secret.
“I trusted him and believed [he] was professional. I never heard anything from anyone I introduced to him, [no one] came back to me saying they had been in a bad situation,” Siad said.
In Teigen’s article for Document earlier this year, he wrote:
Daniel Siad remains at liberty
Epstein is dead. Brunel is dead. But Siad is alive. And the questions that remain are as numerous as they are disturbing: How many Norwegian and Swedish girls were recruited in total? What happened to them?
How Jeffrey Epstein recruited Norwegian and Swedish girls for sex and prostitution