On January 5-6, 2024, Georgian (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.) and Russian-language Facebook accounts (1, 2, 3.) published posts on Facebook accusing various celebrities of pedophilia and linking them with Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused for child trafficking.
One of the posts published by the user shows a photo collage, where in one photo, Barack Obama can be seen with a little girl with an Asian appearance, and in the second photo, a girl of approximately the same age with an Asian appearance is shown, which indicates that the photos depict the same person.
In the second post, the user argues that the photo depicts Obama and Jeffrey Epstein sitting in a boat with a young girl on the Epstein’s island.
In the third post, the user uploaded a short video showing young girls in a hammam (Turkish bath). According to the user, this video was uploaded by actor Isaac Kappy and it depicts scenes of children stripping on Epstein Island. According to the post, the actor was found dead a few hours after uploading the video and it was officially declared a “suicide”.
In the fourth post, the user published a video claiming that children taken from Epstein Island tell how minors were sexually abused and killed during satanic rituals.
Both the Georgian- and the Russian-language posts claim that Jeffrey Epstein had secret tapes of Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Richard Branson having sex with minors. Some of the posts also include lists of people who, the authors of the posts claim, visited Epstein Island.
The claims voiced in the posts contain a number of false and unverified claims:
- The girl sitting next to Barack Obama is his niece, and the other child shown in the second photo was killed in Indonesia;
- Obama is sitting in the boat not with Epstein, but with actor George Clooney, the photo was taken in Italy, and in addition to them, several members of their family and crew are sitting in the boat;
- The video of the children in the bath was taken in a hotel in Turkey, it does not show anything that might indicate signs of trafficking, and it has not been confirmed that the video was actually uploaded by actor Isaac Kappy;
- The lists provided by the authors of the posts are inaccurate and most likely fake. Many of them denied having anything to do with Epstein or ever visiting the island. Moreover, no charges have been brought against any of them, as the victims themselves claim that they have never seen these individuals, or have only seen them in harmless situations;
- Newly released court records show that in 2015, Sarah Ransom sent an email to the court claiming she had secretly recorded videos by Epstein of Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Richard Branson having sex with her friend at various times, although Ransom later denied it and refused to provide evidence.
- The video, in which children talk about satanic rituals and violence, has no connection with Jeffrey Epstein. In addition, the children’s mother and her partner were found to have been forcing the children to spread similar lies against their father, and the investigation found that the stories they told were untrue.
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The body of the deceased girl does not belong to the child sitting next to Barack Obama
The child sitting on Barack Obama’s lap in the circulated photo is Savita Ng, the daughter of Maya Soetoro-Ng, the half-sister of the 44th president of the US. The mentioned photo and information are published on the White House Flickr account.
The deceased girl shown in the second photo of the photo collage is 9-year-old Putri Nur Fauziah, who was killed in October 2015 in Indonesia, put in a cardboard box and dumped in one of Jakarta’s neighborhoods. The photo with similar accusations, as if these two girls are the same person, was circulated in the past, and the information was verified in 2020 by the American fact-checking organization Lead Stories.
2. The photo of the boat is being spread with a false description
In fact, the viral photo shows not Epstein, but the famous actor George Clooney. Also, the photo was not taken on Epstein Island, but on Lake Como in Italy, where Obama visited the actor with his family in 2019. During the visit, they took a motorized boat ride on the famous lake with their family members, and the published photo is taken from these shots. The American fact-checking organizations Lead Stories and Snopes verified the mentioned photo in the past as well.
3. The video of the children in the bath was shot in Turkey and does not provide a basis for linking it to trafficking
Isaac Kappy was an actor and musician who later became known as a conspiracy theorist. In 2018, he accused famous actors and directors, including Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Seth Green, of pedophilia. He claimed that Seth Green, who was friends with him, had half-joked himself about it, although Kappy never produced any real evidence. On May 13, 2019, he committed suicide by jumping from a bridge onto a highway, where he was hit by a car, as a result of which the actor died. It was during this period that the mentioned video spread on the Internet, as if it was published by the actor before his death, and the footage recorded a case of pedophilia. Actually, it is not clear who released the video and what it actually depicts, as it only shows 4 young children who are in a hammam – a Turkish bath. The bathhouse is located in a hotel in Antalya, Turkey, and it appears in various photos and commercials.
4. The list of guests on Epstein’s island is not real
On January 3 and 5, 2024, documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes were released by order of the New York District Court. In particular, these are the recordings from the trial held in 2015, in which Virginia Giuffre accused Epstein’s assistant Ghislaine Maxwell of participating in trafficking activities. It should be noted that as a result of the charges, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2020.
With the release of the documents, information about who was involved in Epstein’s crimes has increased, including a list posted on Facebook that has been circulating in the past. It is worth noting that most of the people on the list have not been confirmed to have visited Epstein Island, and many have personally denied it. Moreover, some of them are mentioned by name in the newly published documents, although in most cases the victims and witnesses stated that they did not meet these persons or met them in innocuous situations.
After reading the published list, it becomes clear that the presence of some individuals there is absurd. For example, football player Callum Hudson-Odoi has also made an official statement that he has never had any contact with Epstein, nor has he traveled to his island. It would have been very difficult given his age, as at the time of Epstein’s death he was only 18 years old, a not-so-famous athlete. Additionally, USA Today verified a similar post and concluded that most of the individuals on the list have not been named in any documents or court proceedings, and there is no evidence and/or charges against them. On the contrary, a lot of disinformation has been spread against many people over the years, which has been verified by the American media.
5. There is no evidence of the existence of secret footage of Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson
Sarah Ransom, one of the witnesses at the 2015 trial against Ghislaine Maxwell, said in an email that her friend had sex with Bill Clinton, Prince Andrews, and Richard Branson at different times, which Jeffrey Epstein secretly filmed. According to her, this friend managed to obtain and send her some of the footage, which Ransom kept in secret places. It is noted that she never published this evidence. On the contrary, after some time, she told the court that she was no longer going to cooperate and that she regretted getting involved in these proceedings and wasting the court’s time. According to a 2019 article in The New Yorker, Ransom admitted that she made up these records and that they do not actually exist.
Disinformation that Bill Clinton was involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile activities has been circulating in the past as well. Read more in the Myth Detector article:
6. The children’s confession video has no connection to Epstein and the stories in it are false
Despite the claims of the Facebook user, the video in which two minors talk about violence and satanic rituals has no connection with Jeffrey Epstein. This video was recorded in Britain. In 2014, these children reported that their father was the leader of a satanic group of 175 parents who abused children and sacrificed newborns. The announcement was followed by an investigation which revealed that the story was a lie and that the children had been coerced into telling such lies by their mother and her partner in order to discredit their father.
Myth Detector has written about the topic in the past as well. For more information, see:
- Disinformation that a fathers in Britain forced his children to participate in satanic rituals (in Georgian)
What do we know about Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes?
Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and multimillionaire. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2008 for sexually assaulting a minor. Also in July 2019, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking, however, on August 10 of the same year, he committed suicide in prison. Based on the testimony of witnesses, it is established that the financier’s crimes were committed at places he owned, including a villa in Palm Beach, Florida. However, the majority of the trafficking and sexual exploitation took place on an island owned by a millionaire called Little St. James. The island was often visited by famous people, although all of them deny that they had any information about what was really happening there. It was a convenient place for Epstein to carry out such activities, as there was no constant access by law enforcement, and the victims could not escape the island, as a result, they were easily sexually exploited and abused. In May 2023, the island was bought by an investor to turn it into a luxury resort.
Epstein had connections to influential world politicians and stars in the film and music industries, which raised suspicions about these individuals, and over the year,s there have been a number of unconfirmed reports that many of them were involved in Epstein’s trafficking activities. However, it should be noted that only Epstein’s assistant, Ghislain Maxwell, was sentenced to prison in connection with this case. Another individual against whom the victims brought formal charges was Britain’s Prince Andrew. He was sued by Virginia Giuffre for having sex with her when she was underage. The lawsuit dragged on for years and finally ended in 2022, when the parties settled, according to which Prince paid Giuffre an unspecified amount of money. It should be noted that Prince Andrew has never pleaded guilty, nor has he been found guilty by a court.
About the Sources
Lawyer Irakli Zakareishvili often publishes posts with anti-Western, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-opposition content. Since the emergence of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, the user has been spreading disinformation regularly. False information spread by Zakareishvili has been debunked by “Myth Detector” many times in the past.
Facebook user Dato Nacvlishvili (Faika) is a supporter of the pro-Kremlin “Conservative Movement” party and is one of the administrators of the group “Archives of Enemies of the Country“. The false information spread by the user has been debunked by “Myth Detector” many times in the past (1, 2, 3).
Facebook account “Mamuka Kakauridze” is the admin of the group Photo-Fact GEORGIA and regularly publishes topics related to coronavirus, conspiracies, and disinformation. The disinformation spread by the user was debunked by “Myth Detector” in the past as well.
The Facebook account Oleg Dor often publishes posts with pro-Russian and anti-Western content. The user has published disinformation in the past as well (1, 2.)
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