New Mexico probes allegation of bodies buried near Epstein ranch

New Mexico's Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it is investigating an allegation that the late convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls buried outside his remote New Mexico ranch.

The US Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

"We are actively investigating this allegation and are conducting a broader review in light of the latest release from the US Department of Justice," Rodriguez said in an emailed response to queries about the case.

A day earlier, New Mexico's legislature launched the first comprehensive investigation into accusations that Epstein abused girls and women at the Zorro Ranch 48 km south of Santa Fe for more than two decades. Pressure from Democratic lawmakers to uncover Epstein's crimes has become a major political challenge for President Donald Trump.

The redacted 2019 email, contained in the latest release of Epstein-related documents by the US Justice Department, had been sent a few months after Epstein's death to Eddy Aragon, a New Mexico radio show host who had discussed the Zorro Ranch on his programme.

The sender, claiming to be a former Zorro Ranch employee, requested payment of one bitcoin in return for videos that the email said had been taken from Epstein's house.

Aragon said in a phone interview that he believed the email to be legitimate and immediately forwarded it to the FBI. He said he did not receive any payment from or have any further contact with the sender, although he recently tried to respond to it for the first time, but the address was no longer functioning.

The redacted email to Aragon said two foreign girls had been buried on Epstein's orders "somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro" and that the two had died after being seriously assaulted by the financier.

A 2021 FBI report, also contained in the latest Epstein file release, said Aragon visited an FBI office to report the email, which offered seven videos of abuse and the location of two foreign girls buried on Zorro Ranch in return for one bitcoin.

A Reuters search of other documents among the Department of Justice's disclosures did not find any other references to the allegations in the redacted email or what investigators made of its claims.

The Justice Department warned last year that some of the files it disclosed from its investigation of Epstein "contain untrue and sensationalist claims," and that they include anonymous accusations that investigators did not corroborate, or in some cases determined to be false.

In an interview on Wednesday, New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard said her office had found the redacted email during a recent search of the latest Epstein file release.

Garcia Richard, in a February 10 letter to the US Justice Department and a statement, called on federal and state justice officials to fully investigate allegations of criminality on Epstein's ranch and state lands adjacent to it.

Epstein leased around 503 hectares of state lands around the ranch in 1993. Garcia cancelled the leases in September 2019 after her office determined Epstein did not use the land for ranching or agriculture, but as a privacy buffer around his ranch.

Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019 and was ruled to have taken his own life.