The Daniel Siad death has closed a case before it could properly begin. The 69-year-old modelling scout, who recruited women for Jeffrey Epstein and faced accusations of rape and trafficking in France, was found dead at his home near Paris on Monday evening.

He had not yet been questioned by investigators.

An inquiry into the cause of death has been opened, and an autopsy is planned.

The Woman Who Reported Him

For Ebba Karlsson, the timing is unbearable.

The former Swedish model accused Siad of raping her in France after he scouted her in her hometown of Stockholm in 1990, when she was 20. She said he used a different name then, and she was only able to identify him decades later after seeing his photograph in reporting on the Epstein files.

She filed criminal allegations of rape and human trafficking against him in Paris earlier this year. Siad’s lawyer, Ménya Arab-Tigrine, said he denied the accusation.

Karlsson told AFP the death was very frustrating.

“He was very close to be arrested,” she said. “We worked so hard for this, trying to have justice.”

That sentence describes something victims of these networks have experienced repeatedly. The people who might have answered for what happened keep dying before the questions get asked.

Named More Than a Thousand Times

Siad’s name appeared in over 1,000 documents among the US Department of Justice Epstein files declassified earlier this year.

He was one of several French men accused of helping Epstein traffic and abuse women, and he was under investigation by French prosecutors who specialise in human trafficking.

He denied the allegations and said he wanted the chance to give his account.

The Work, in His Own Words

The emails released in the files describe a scouting operation with an explicit dual purpose.

Siad travelled constantly, visiting villages in eastern Europe and flying to Cuba and Sweden looking for women to work in modelling. Alongside that, he searched for women he thought Epstein might want to meet.

He described the process to Epstein in 2014 using a fishing metaphor: patience was required, and results were unpredictable. Some trips produced results, others nothing.

The correspondence ran for years and became remarkably specific.

In 2009 he wrote that Slovakia was the place to be, noting he had 45 women to see there. He told Epstein he planned to spend the summer scouting small villages across Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, and promised a great surprise on Epstein’s next visit to Paris.

He was still working in 2016, messaging from Barcelona and telling Epstein he was with amazing beauty.

Epstein’s Side of the Exchange

Epstein’s replies were short to the point of curtness.

He asked about new girls, whether there was any news, whether anything was worth coming to Paris for, whether there were any interesting women.

Women were frequently identified by nationality rather than name. In June 2014, writing from New York, Epstein asked whether the Swedish girl was there.

Sometimes his response to a candidate was a single word: age?

One of Siad’s replies stands out among all the rest. Describing a woman he had found, he wrote that she was 26 but looked 18.

Payments and Loyalty

The files depict Siad as one of Epstein’s most persistent correspondents, in regular contact until months before the financier’s death in 2019.

He received wired payments, apparently covering expenses from his travel to find women.

He was also well connected within the industry itself, working on commission as a scout for Jean-Luc Brunel, the leading modelling agent in Paris, New York and Miami for over four decades.

A Pattern of Deaths Before Trial

Brunel killed himself in prison in February 2022, after 14 months in custody awaiting trial on charges of raping minors and sexual harassment. He denied those charges and denied any role in Epstein’s trafficking.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

Siad has now died before questioning.

Three men central to the same network, none of whom faced a courtroom.

His Defence

Siad maintained throughout that he had been deceived.

In an emailed statement to the Guardian in February, he said he believed he was supplying women for legitimate casting sessions in Paris.

“He had a big apartment where he used to organise all his meetings, including casting for models I recruited, for Victoria’s Secret and MC2,” he wrote. “The casting time would not last more than 10 minutes. I always left the place with the models immediately.”

Speaking to France TV earlier this year, he said Epstein had abused his trust and that he had not been in a position to know the man was dangerous.

“With time, one discovers that this individual committed atrocities; fortunately, I never introduced him to any minor or non-minor who was abused. I have nothing to reproach myself for,” he said.

Siad described himself as French-born, of Algerian origin, with Swedish citizenship.

The Tip That Went Nowhere

One detail in the DOJ files raises a question that will outlast this investigation.

The documents suggest the FBI was tipped off about Siad’s work for Epstein in 2016.

That was three years before Epstein’s death and roughly a decade before Karlsson was able to identify her alleged attacker. Whatever became of that tip, Siad continued operating and travelling freely in the years that followed.

Where the French Investigation Goes Now

French prosecutors announced in February that they were assembling a team of magistrates to examine evidence from the declassified files, which name a number of French nationals including Brunel.

That work continues, and Siad’s death removes one subject but not the broader inquiry.

For the women involved, though, the arithmetic is grim. The Epstein network operated for decades and involved many people across several countries. The ones who could explain how it functioned keep becoming unavailable.

Karlsson spent years working toward an arrest that came weeks too late. That is the part of this story that will not be resolved by any autopsy.