The Epstein Files and Ethiopia: When a Paedophile’s Shadow Falls on the Horn of Africa

An investigation into how Jeffrey Epstein’s tentacles reached Ethiopia, and what it reveals about power, complicity, and the global reckoning with sexual predation

By E Frashie Ethiopian Tribune Columnist

In the grand tradition of British scandals involving the powerful and the predatory, the Jeffrey Epstein affair has proven to be the gift that keeps on giving—or rather, taking. As the US Department of Justice released millions of documents related to the convicted sex trafficker and financier, Britons watched with grim familiarity as two of their own, Lord Peter Mandelson and Prince Andrew, found themselves ensnared in the lengthening shadow of Epstein’s crimes. For Ethiopians and East Africans, however, the revelations have taken on a peculiar local dimension: their country appears in approximately 334 of the released documents, raising uncomfortable questions about who knew what, and when.

The British experience offers a cautionary tale. Lord Mandelson, the Labour grandee and former EU trade commissioner, has faced renewed scrutiny over his association with Epstein, leading to swift rejection of his potential appointment as US ambassador and intense public opprobrium. Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has become a pariah within his own family, stripped of royal duties and forced to settle a civil sexual abuse case brought by Virginia Giuffre for a reported £12 million. Both men’s falls from grace illustrate a crucial shift in public tolerance: proximity to a convicted paedophile is no longer merely unfortunate it is damning.

For Ethiopia, a nation already grappling with internal conflicts, economic challenges, and questions of governance, the Epstein connection represents yet another unwelcome international embarrassment. But it also raises profound questions about how predators like Epstein exploited developing nations, and whether enough is being done to investigate his network in Africa.

Britain’s reckoning with the Epstein scandal has been particularly visceral, perhaps because it touches upon enduring anxieties about privilege, power, and paedophilia within the establishment. Lord Mandelson’s association with Epstein reportedly introduced through mutual connections in elite circles—has proven politically toxic. Despite his protestations that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their acquaintance, the court of public opinion has rendered its verdict. His nomination as ambassador to Washington was effectively dead on arrival, with both Conservative and Labour figures expressing alarm.

The Mandelson affair echoes the Prince Andrew debacle but with notable differences. Whilst Andrew’s relationship with Epstein was documented through photographs, flight logs, and eventually legal testimony, Mandelson’s connection appears more tangential, dinners, social gatherings, the sort of networking that defines elite circles. Yet in the post-Epstein era, such distinctions matter less than they once might have. The question is no longer “Did you know?” but “Should you have known?” and increasingly, “Why didn’t you ask?”

Prince Andrew’s trajectory from the Queen’s favourite son to virtual exile illustrates the mechanism of social rejection in real time. The now-infamous BBC Newsnight interview in November 2019, in which he claimed he couldn’t have been at a nightclub with Virginia Giuffre because he was at Pizza Express in Woking and suffered from a medical condition preventing him from sweating, became a masterclass in self-immolation. Public revulsion was swift and comprehensive. Corporate sponsors fled. Charities distanced themselves. The military stripped him of honorary titles.

What united both men’s downfalls was their association with a man whose crimes were, by 2008, a matter of public record. Epstein’s initial conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, a sweetheart plea deal that saw him serve just 13 months, should have ended his social acceptability. That it didn’t speaks to the power of wealth, influence, and the willingness of elites to overlook uncomfortable truths.

Epstein’s 2019 arrest on federal charges of sex trafficking minors and his subsequent death by apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail cell merely confirmed what investigators had long suspected: his earlier conviction represented only a fraction of his crimes. The subsequent releases of court documents, flight logs from his private jet (dubbed the “Lolita Express”), and now the DOJ files have painted a portrait of industrial-scale sexual exploitation involving girls as young as 14.

Yet the released documents reveal something far more disturbing than the already horrific sex trafficking operation. Buried within thousands of pages are references to Epstein’s fascination with eugenics, transhumanism, and what can only be described as a God complex that would make Lucifer himself envious. Witnesses and associates described Epstein’s interest in using his New Mexico ranch to seed the human race with his DNA, impregnating multiple women to create a “superior” bloodline a scheme that echoes the darkest chapters of 20th-century pseudoscience.

The files contain disturbing allegations that extend beyond sexual abuse into territory that seems almost mediaeval in its barbarity. Court testimonies reference Epstein’s circle discussing practices that blur the line between scientific experimentation and occult ritual. One particularly harrowing account describes conversations about cellular regeneration theories and the procurement of biological materials from young victims allegations that, whilst unproven in court, paint a portrait of a man whose depravity knew no bounds.

Whether these represent literal truths or the exaggerations of traumatised witnesses struggling to articulate unspeakable experiences, they underscore a crucial point: Jeffrey Epstein was not merely a sex offender but a man who believed himself above natural and moral law. His interest in cutting-edge science, from artificial intelligence to genetics, was inseparable from his conviction that wealth and intellect entitled him to treat human beings, particularly young girls, as experimental subjects. This, then, was the “Lucifer” that Professor Berhanu Nega might have unwittingly invoked.

The revelation that Berhanu Nega, now Ethiopia’s Minister of Education, received scholarship funding from Jeffrey Epstein takes on an almost prophetic irony given the professor’s own public statements. During his years in opposition to the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, Nega famously declared that he would “work with Lucifer himself” if it meant overthrowing the regime he despised.

It was not mere rhetoric. Nega’s political journey has been one of scorched-earth pragmatism. Having left the United States, where he held academic positions, he took the extraordinary step of accepting Eritrean citizenship to wage an armed insurgency against the Ethiopian government. His organisation, Ginbot 7, launched attacks from Eritrean territory, making common cause with one of Africa’s most repressive regimes a government that has held no elections since independence in 1993 and operates what human rights organisations have described as an open-air prison.

The insurgency failed militarily but succeeded in keeping Nega relevant. When Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, Nega was among the formerly exiled opposition figures welcomed back to Addis Ababa. His transformation from armed rebel to Minister of Education was swift and, to many observers, bewildering. That he now oversees the education of Ethiopia’s children whilst having received funding from a convicted paedophile strikes many Ethiopians as a cosmic joke in exceptionally poor taste.

Nega has maintained that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes when he received the scholarship funding in the early 2000s. This is plausible, Epstein’s 2008 conviction came later, and his ability to maintain a veneer of respectability amongst academics was well-documented. Yet the symbolic resonance remains inescapable: a man who vowed to work with Lucifer did, in fact, accept money from perhaps the closest thing to a living embodiment of evil that modern America has produced.

The question now confronting Nega and the Ethiopian government is whether historical ignorance absolves present responsibility. Should a Minister of Education, responsible for safeguarding children, remain in post whilst associated, however tangentially, with the world’s most notorious child sex trafficker?

The Epstein connection to Ethiopia becomes more disturbing when examined alongside recent developments in the country’s digital infrastructure. According to documents circulating amongst civil liberties advocates and technology researchers, the Ethiopian government has harvested DNA and biometric data from approximately five million children as part of a digital identity programme. The initiative, ostensibly designed to improve access to education and health services, has raised alarm bells amongst data protection experts.

What transforms this from a concerning privacy issue into a potential Epstein connection is the funding architecture. Investigative journalists have identified links between the biometric programme and funding arrangements involving entities connected to Epstein’s network of technology investments. Moreover, contracts with United Arab Emirates-based businesses, some of which appear in the periphery of the Epstein files, suggest a complex web of financial relationships that demand scrutiny.

The UAE connection is particularly troubling. Epstein maintained extensive business relationships in the Gulf states, where privacy laws and less stringent regulatory oversight provided convenient cover for questionable transactions. That Ethiopian government contracts for biometric data collection involving children might flow through similar channels raises urgent questions.

To be clear: there is no evidence of direct Epstein involvement in Ethiopia’s digital ID programme, which postdates his death. But the pattern is familiar developing nations desperate for technological advancement and foreign investment, complex funding arrangements involving offshore entities, and programmes that collect sensitive biological data from vulnerable populations. These are precisely the conditions that predators like Epstein exploited.

The collection of children’s DNA in particular evokes Epstein’s documented fascination with genetics and eugenics. His stated desire to “seed the human race” with his genetic material, his funding of research into human longevity and enhancement, and his connections to the transhumanist movement all suggest a man obsessed with biological manipulation on a grand scale.

For five million Ethiopian children to have their genetic information collected and stored in databases accessible to foreign contractors recalls the darkest elements of the Epstein files. What safeguards exist to prevent this data being sold, shared, or exploited? Who has access? What purposes, beyond the stated administrative ones, might it serve?

These questions acquire particular urgency given Ethiopia’s political instability and history of surveillance. The EPRDF government, which Nega spent years fighting, was notorious for its extensive security apparatus. The current government under Abiy Ahmed has shown little inclination toward greater transparency or respect for privacy rights. The Tigray conflict demonstrated the willingness to use technology, including telecommunications shutdowns, as weapons of war.

The majority of Ethiopian references in the released documents relate to market intelligence reports that Epstein commissioned from consultants, suggesting he had, or was considering, investments in the country. One confirmed investment was iCog Labs, an artificial intelligence research laboratory co-founded by Ben Goertzel, a prominent AI researcher, and Getnet Aseffa. The emails reveal Goertzel’s energetic cultivation of Epstein as a funder, with repeated assurances that “the guys” in Ethiopia were doing “amazing things”, the sort of vague enthusiasm that signals either genuine excitement or, more cynically, the massaging of a wealthy patron’s ego.

The iCog Labs connection is particularly relevant because it illustrates Epstein’s modus operandi in respectable society. By positioning himself as a patron of cutting-edge scientific research, he also funded Harvard University’s Programme for Evolutionary Dynamics and MIT’s Media Lab, Epstein purchased legitimacy. Scientists and academics who accepted his funding found themselves in an impossible position after his crimes became undeniable: return the money and acknowledge poor judgment, or keep it and face accusations of complicity.

Given Epstein’s documented interest in artificial intelligence, genetics, and human enhancement, his funding of an AI laboratory in Ethiopia takes on sinister overtones. Was this genuine philanthropic interest in African technological development, or was Ethiopia, with its limited regulatory oversight and desperate need for investment, an attractive location for research that might face ethical objections elsewhere?

More colourful, if less consequential, are the emails from Shaher Abdulhak, a Yemeni billionaire who died in 2020 and who addressed Epstein as “cousin brother” a term of endearment that sounds rather less charming in English than presumably intended. Abdulhak’s pitches to Epstein included the gloriously ill-conceived idea of creating an energy drink from khat (a stimulant plant chewed across the Horn of Africa and Yemen) mixed with lemon juice to compete with Red Bull.

More seriously, Abdulhak sought a $20 million loan for National Tobacco Enterprise Ethiopia, claiming his Sheba Investment Company owned 60% of it. Whether Epstein provided the funds remains unclear, though the brazen nature of the request speaks to the casual corruption that characterised elite interactions with the financier.

Buried in the correspondence is one email that transforms the Ethiopian connection from merely embarrassing to potentially sinister. In a message apparently sent to Abdulhak, Epstein mentioned that a “good friend who runs a modelling agency” believed there were “interesting girls” in Ethiopia.

In isolation, this phrase might be innocuous. In context, an email from a convicted sex offender who trafficked underage girls internationally, it becomes chilling. The term “interesting girls” echoes the euphemistic language Epstein and his associates used to discuss recruitment of victims. Modelling agencies, legitimate and otherwise, have long been identified as potential vectors for exploitation, offering young women from impoverished backgrounds promises of international careers whilst potentially exposing them to abuse.

Court documents from Epstein’s trials reveal a recruitment pattern that was both systematic and global. Victims were often approached through seemingly legitimate channels, modelling scouts, educational programmes, employment opportunities, before being groomed and trafficked. The operation relied on local recruiters who understood cultural contexts and could identify vulnerable targets.

Ethiopia, with its poverty, limited opportunities for young women, and a culture where deference to wealthy foreigners remains common, would have been an ideal hunting ground. That Epstein’s private jet received permission to land in Ethiopia, and that he mentioned visiting the country in correspondence with Steve Bannon, confirms he had physical presence there.

There is no direct evidence in the released documents that Epstein trafficked Ethiopian girls or engaged in criminal conduct within Ethiopia. But the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, particularly when so much of Epstein’s operation was deliberately hidden. Victims have described being trafficked to numerous countries, being flown on his private jets to locations where their passports were confiscated and they were kept in conditions resembling sexual slavery.

For Ethiopian law enforcement and civil society, these revelations demand investigation. If Epstein visited Ethiopia, whom did he meet? Were any young Ethiopian women recruited through his network? Did any of his associates, the modelling agency friend, for instance, operate in the country?

The reaction amongst Ethiopians and East Africans to the Epstein revelations has been complex, reflecting broader ambivalences about corruption, foreign influence, and accountability. On social media and in diaspora communities, there is genuine anger, not merely at Epstein, but at the Ethiopian individuals and institutions that enabled his presence.

The revelation about Berhanu Nega has proven particularly divisive. His supporters argue that accepting scholarship funding from Epstein over two decades ago, before the full extent of his crimes was publicly known, represents an unfortunate association rather than complicity. His critics counter that a man who vowed to work with Lucifer cannot now claim shock at having done precisely that.

The controversy has reignited broader questions about Nega’s judgment and principles. His acceptance of Eritrean citizenship to fight Ethiopia, making common cause with a regime at least as repressive as the EPRDF he opposed, already raised eyebrows. His seamless transition from armed insurgent to government minister suggested a pragmatism that borders on opportunism. The Epstein connection adds another troubling layer.

Yet there is also a strain of fatalism in East African responses, a sense that corruption and exploitation by wealthy foreigners is simply business as usual. Ethiopia has long experience with foreign actors from colonial powers to modern corporations and NGOs extracting value whilst leaving minimal benefit. In this reading, Epstein is merely the latest in a long line of predators, and focusing on him distracts from structural problems.

This cynicism, whilst understandable, is dangerous. It normalises exploitation and discourages the accountability mechanisms necessary to prevent future abuses. The global reckoning with Epstein’s crimes has demonstrated that exposure and prosecution are possible, albeit belatedly.

The convergence of Epstein’s eugenic obsessions with Ethiopia’s biometric data collection programme represents a thoroughly modern nightmare. Epstein’s interest in “improving” the human race through selective breeding was, at least in his expressed ambitions, constrained by biology how many women could he impregnate? But contemporary genetic databases and artificial intelligence offer possibilities that would have seemed like science fiction even a decade ago.

The five million Ethiopian children whose DNA has been harvested now exist as data points in systems whose full capabilities and access protocols remain opaque. In the wrong hands, such databases could enable precisely the sort of genetic manipulation and selection that Epstein fantasised about. Even in benign hands, the data represents extraordinary value pharmaceutical companies pay enormous sums for genetic information from diverse populations.

That contracts related to this programme involve UAE-based entities with peripheral connections to Epstein’s network may be coincidental. But given the pattern of Epstein’s investments, artificial intelligence in Ethiopia, genetic research globally, transhumanist projects, the possibility of intentional targeting cannot be dismissed.

The Ethiopian government’s response to questions about data security has been, at best, inadequate. Officials tout the benefits of digital identity whilst providing few details about encryption, access controls, or international data-sharing agreements. For a government that has demonstrated willingness to use technology repressively, and which employs a Minister of Education who received funding from a paedophile eugenicist, assurances ring hollow.

What the Epstein files ultimately reveal, whether the references are to Britain, Ethiopia, or the dozens of other jurisdictions touched by his crimes, is the banality of elite evil. Epstein was not a Bond villain operating from a secret lair. He was a fixture of respectable society, funding university departments, advising the wealthy, socialising with princes and presidents.

His crimes were enabled not by exotic conspiracy but by the mundane mechanisms of wealth and power: the assumption that rich men deserve privacy, the reluctance to ask awkward questions of generous donors, the willingness to overlook earlier convictions in exchange for access and funding.

For Ethiopia, the lessons are particularly stark. When Professor Berhanu Nega vowed to work with Lucifer himself to achieve his political aims, he articulated a principle, that ends justify means, which is fundamentally corrupting. Whether he knowingly accepted money from a monster is less important than his demonstrated willingness to do so. That such a man now oversees the education of Ethiopia’s children, whilst his government harvests their genetic data through murky international contracts, should alarm anyone concerned with child welfare.

The parallels with Britain’s experience are instructive. Lord Mandelson and Prince Andrew discovered that wealth, title, and power provide no immunity from public judgment when the crimes are sufficiently heinous and the association sufficiently close. Both have been effectively exiled from polite society, their legacies permanently tarnished.

Ethiopian figures connected to Epstein deserve similar scrutiny. The fact that Ethiopia is poorer than Britain, that its media infrastructure is weaker, that competing crises demand attention none of these absolve the moral responsibility to investigate and, where appropriate, demand accountability.

As more files are released and investigations continue, the full extent of Epstein’s Ethiopian connections may become clearer. For now, Ethiopians are left with uncomfortable questions, partial answers, and the knowledge that their country appeared on the radar of one of history’s most prolific sexual predators a man whose interests in genetics, artificial intelligence, and young girls may have found fertile ground in a nation desperate for investment and incapable of effective oversight.

If Berhanu Nega truly made a Faustian bargain, working with his Lucifer to achieve power, the devil has certainly had his due. The question now is whether Ethiopia’s children will pay the price for their elders’ moral compromises. With five million of them reduced to data points in databases connected, however tenuously, to a dead paedophile’s trans humanist fantasies, the answer may already be written in code we’ve yet to fully decrypt.

 

The Ethiopian Tribune continues to investigate the Epstein files and welcomes information from readers regarding any connections between Epstein’s network and activities in the Horn of Africa. We particularly seek information about the biometric data collection programme, its funding sources, and its international partnerships.