Ankur Desai

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Authorities in the US state of New Mexico have launched a search in a ranch previously owned by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Several survivors have testified that Epstein assaulted teenage girls and women there, but the remote location has never been searched before.

Vicky Ward is an investigative journalist who's written extensively about Epstein.

She's been speaking to my colleague Tim Franks.

There was this email that's in the files, an anonymous email claiming to be from a former employee at the ranch, alleging that there are two bodies of foreign girls buried in the hills there.

Those allegations have not been corroborated.

It's not even clear that the source of the email has been verified.

We do know.

that several of Epstein's victims were abused there.

I mean, I sat through Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial and two of the four victims

Victims who testified at that trial talked about what had happened to them at the ranch.

And so it is absolutely extraordinary that it hasn't been searched until now.

Yeah, it appears, and I'm speculating a little bit, but based on what's been reported, that it did exactly slip through the cracks.

Because when Jeffrey Epstein was indicted on federal charges in 2019, that really meant that the feds, under the jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York,

which is where he was charged, had authority over the investigation.