• New Mexico’s Department of Justice opened a criminal inquiry Wednesday into allegations that Epstein ordered the burial of two foreign girls near his ranch in Santa Fe County
• The allegation originated in a 2019 email sent to a local radio host, who immediately forwarded it to the FBI — but there is no public record of any follow-up investigation
• A bipartisan state Truth Commission held its first meeting Tuesday, one day after the legislature unanimously approved a $2.5 million probe into crimes at the 7,600-acre property

SANTA FE, NM (TDR) — The most disturbing allegation in the latest release of Epstein files didn’t come from a courtroom or a congressional hearing. It came from an encrypted email sent in November 2019 to Eddy Aragon, a New Mexico radio host, by someone claiming to be a former employee at Jeffrey Epstein‘s Zorro Ranch. The sender alleged that two foreign girls were buried in the hills outside the property on orders from Epstein and “Madam G” — an apparent reference to Ghislaine Maxwell — and that both had died “by strangulation during rough, fetish sex.”

Aragon said he forwarded the email to the FBI within days of receiving it.

“It felt very legitimate to me. That’s why I forwarded it.” — Eddy Aragon, radio host, speaking to Source New Mexico

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That was more than seven years ago. There is no public record that the bureau ever investigated the claim. A 2021 FBI report contained in the recently released files confirms Aragon visited an FBI office to report the email, which offered seven videos allegedly depicting Epstein abusing minors and the location of two buried girls in exchange for one bitcoin — worth roughly $8,000 at the time. But a Reuters review of the broader Epstein document release found no other references to the burial allegations or any indication investigators followed up.

The email only became public because Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which compelled the Department of Justice to release millions of pages of Epstein-related documents beginning Jan. 30, 2026. Without that legislation, the tip might still be sitting in a federal filing cabinet.

New Mexico Steps In Where the Feds Did Not

On Wednesday, the New Mexico Department of Justice confirmed it had opened a criminal investigation into the burial allegation. Spokesperson Lauren Rodriguez said the state had requested an unredacted copy of the 2019 email from federal authorities, including the sender’s identifying details, IP data, timestamps and routing information.

“We are actively investigating this allegation and are conducting a broader review in light of the latest release from the US Department of Justice.” — Lauren Rodriguez, New Mexico Department of Justice spokesperson

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The criminal inquiry adds a second track to an already accelerating state-level response. On Monday, the New Mexico House unanimously approved a $2.5 million bipartisan investigation into crimes at Zorro Ranch — the first comprehensive probe of the property. The four-member “Truth Commission” held its first meeting Tuesday morning at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, lasting roughly 15 minutes but establishing subpoena authority, witness protections and a timeline: interim findings by July, a final report by December.

“This is a fact-finding mission. Everyone wants to pull us into a direction about politics, but this is really, truly about getting the truth on the record and we take that very seriously.” — Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe), Truth Commission chair

The commission is deliberately bipartisan — two Democrats and two Republicans — and its members bring relevant professional backgrounds. Andrea Romero is an attorney. William Hall (R-Aztec) is a former FBI agent. Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) has prosecuted crimes against children. Marianna Anaya (D-Albuquerque) is a survivor advocacy professional and former deputy director of ProgressNow New Mexico.

A Pattern of Federal Inaction

The burial email is not the only allegation that appears to have gone uninvestigated. The broader institutional record reveals a pattern of federal agencies claiming jurisdiction over Epstein’s New Mexico activities — then doing nothing with it.

Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas told Source New Mexico that his office launched a state investigation into Epstein and Maxwell’s activities at Zorro Ranch in 2019, including contact with multiple victims. Then the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York intervened.

“During that time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York asked that we pause any further state investigation or prosecution of activity related to Epstein, as they communicated to us that they were leading an active multi-jurisdictional prosecution.” — Hector Balderas, former New Mexico Attorney General

Balderas said his office forwarded all reports and interview evidence to the DOJ and requested that federal asset forfeiture tools be used to seize the ranch. A December 2019 email in the Epstein files from federal authorities to the executors of Epstein’s estate confirmed what local officials had long suspected: federal agents had “not searched the New Mexico property.”

In a separate September 2019 email, Manhattan federal prosecutors noted that the New Mexico attorney general’s office had “agreed to cease any investigation into sex trafficking and share whatever they had gathered.” The state stood down. The feds never stepped in. And the ranch — which Epstein owned from 1993 until his death and which appears more than 4,200 times in the released files — was never searched.

“New Mexico is acting where the federal government is failing to do so.” — U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), who serves on the federal committee that released Epstein documents

What the Commission Will Investigate

The Truth Commission’s scope extends well beyond the burial allegation. Lawmakers plan to examine why Epstein was never required to register as a sex offender in New Mexico despite his 2008 Florida guilty plea for soliciting a minor. They will scrutinize ties between Epstein and two former Democratic governors and a former state attorney general. They will review shell company structures, sex offender registry loopholes and statute of limitations gaps that may have enabled Epstein to operate for decades.

State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard, whose office manages trust lands adjacent to the ranch, first flagged the burial allegation after reviewing the released files. She told CNN she offered to cooperate with investigations as early as 2019, when she took office, but said there had been no investigation on either the state or private land portions of the ranch that she was aware of.

The current ranch owner, Texas businessman and GOP comptroller candidate Donald Huffines, who purchased the property in 2023, has said he will fully cooperate with investigators. He renamed the property San Rafael Ranch and said no law enforcement agency has ever approached him to request access.

Attorney Sigrid McCawley, whose firm has represented hundreds of Epstein survivors including the late Virginia Giuffre, called the investigation long overdue.

“Many of the survivors had experiences in New Mexico, and as we’ve learned, there were local politicians and other people that were aware of what was happening in New Mexico.” — Sigrid McCawley, attorney for Epstein survivors

The U.S. Department of Justice referred requests for comment to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment. The federal DOJ has not responded to the state’s request for the unredacted email.

Federal officials have cautioned that the released files “contain untrue and sensationalist claims,” including anonymous accusations that were never corroborated or were determined to be false. Whether the burial allegation falls into that category remains unknown — precisely because, by all available evidence, no one investigated it.

If the FBI confirmed receiving this tip in 2019 and a 2021 report documented the visit, what standard of evidence does the bureau require before investigating an allegation of buried bodies on property owned by a convicted sex trafficker — and who bears responsibility for seven years of silence?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from Reuters’ reporting on the burial allegation, CNN’s coverage of the Truth Commission and the 2019 email, Source New Mexico’s reporting on the commission’s first meeting and Balderas’ statement, TIME’s investigation into the Zorro Ranch files, reporting by NBC News, Axios, The Hill, Newsweek, the Albuquerque Journal, the Santa Fe New Mexican, and the Source New Mexico investigation into the original email.

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