Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office announced February 24 the formation of “Investigation Team No. 5” — three senior prosecutors with organized crime and human trafficking experience assigned to investigate what Polish authorities describe as “an organized criminal group of an international nature” operating between 2005 and 2018. The alleged group recruited Polish minors through deception, promising modeling and fashion agency careers before subjecting them to sexual exploitation. The target is Jeffrey Epstein’s network. The country that built the case against him has yet to charge anyone new.
Justice Minister Waldemar Zurek made Poland’s position plain: “The Polish state must check whether crimes have taken place on the territory of the Republic of Poland and whether Polish citizens were involved in the case.” His ministry announced it will request access to all classified materials from US authorities — not the redacted public version, but the files behind the black boxes. The US Department of Justice confirmed it has not shared the files with any nation. Poland is asking anyway.
The released files contain specific Polish threads. A 2009 email from Daniel Siad — described by victims’ lawyers as an Epstein recruiter — detailed his search for women in rural Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Siad wrote he had girls “already waiting” in Poland and mentioned Kraków. He worked closely with both Epstein and Jean-Luc Brunel, a modeling agency owner who died in French custody in 2022 before standing trial for raping minors.
Two Poles worked inside the operation. Adrianna Mucińska Ross traveled on Epstein’s private jet and was listed as a potential accomplice in his 2008 criminal case. Janusz Banasiak managed Epstein’s Palm Beach residence for twenty years and testified that Ross removed computers and documents before a police raid. The FBI found Epstein served as the point of contact for visa applicants from Poland and six other countries in 2004 and 2005. A 2017 email thread referenced more than $125,000 in wire payments he sent to Poland.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk went further than criminal investigation. From the official Polish government website: “Jeffrey Epstein recorded and filmed influential Western leaders, presidents, prime ministers, and the heads of the world’s largest companies. The whole world is talking about this and wondering what risks it poses to individual countries.” Tusk said Poland would encourage other nations to conduct an international investigation.
Poland is one of at least five countries that launched formal investigations after the January 30 DOJ release. Latvia opened a criminal probe into the recruitment of Latvian nationals for sexual exploitation — Latvia appears more than 500 times in the files, its capital Riga more than 800. Lithuania’s prosecutors are investigating human trafficking after finding Epstein transferred €75,000 to a Vilnius company. Turkish prosecutors began reviewing the files in December 2025. Norway’s economic crimes unit launched multiple investigations within days.
The foreign investigations have produced results the United States has not. British police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on February 19 on suspicion of misconduct in public office — the first member of a British royal family arrested in 379 years. Four days later, police arrested Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the United States, on the same charge. Mandelson is accused of sharing sensitive government documents with Epstein. He was led from his London home by plainclothes officers and released on bail.
Norway charged former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland with aggravated corruption — a man who also chaired the Nobel Peace Prize committee and led the Council of Europe. Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband Terje Rød-Larsen, architects of the Oslo Accords, were both charged with corruption after files revealed Epstein left $10 million to their children in his will.
France’s financial crimes prosecutors opened a probe into former Culture Minister Jack Lang. The board of Edmond de Rothschild Group announced it would “independently monitor” CEO Ariane de Rothschild after Reuters reported she corresponded with Epstein dozens of times over five years. In 2019, her bank stated she had never met Epstein. The files showed otherwise. Slovakia’s national security adviser resigned. A Swedish UN official quit. Dubai’s DP World chairman was replaced.
Two arrests. Three corruption charges. At least five national criminal investigations. Resignations spanning six countries.
In the United States — the country that investigated Epstein for decades and holds six million pages of evidence — zero arrests. Zero charges. Zero new prosecutions. The DOJ released 3.5 million pages out of six million and declared its obligations met. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office sent Congress a letter listing over 300 “politically exposed persons” from the files. The list included Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, Kurt Cobain, and Ronald Reagan alongside actual Epstein associates. No distinction between a dead celebrity in a news clipping and a living person who flew on the private jet.
The files foreign governments are working from are themselves incomplete. Perpetrator names were redacted while the identities of at least 31 victims were accidentally exposed. Survivors’ attorneys called the January 30 release “the single most egregious violation of victim privacy in one day in United States history.” When members of Congress reviewed unredacted files on February 9, they found at least six men concealed without legal justification. The DOJ removed those redactions only after lawmakers complained publicly. Poland sees all of this and responds by requesting the classified materials. Epstein’s network recruited from Kraków, trafficked through Latvia, corrupted Norwegian diplomats, compromised British officials, and enriched Swiss bankers. The victims crossed borders. The crimes crossed borders. Poland formed an investigation team. Norway filed corruption charges. Britain arrested a royal. The DOJ sent Congress a list with Elvis on it. The rest of the world read those 3.5 million pages and started prosecuting. The country that wrote them has not.
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