Daniel Siad, a French-Swedish modelling scout whose name appeared thousands of times in declassified files linked to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was found dead at his residence in the north-western Paris suburb of Colombes on Monday evening, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office confirmed on Wednesday. An investigation into the cause of death was opened immediately, and an autopsy will be carried out. Siad was 69.

French authorities had been investigating Siad over multiple allegations, including rape and human trafficking, following complaints from at least five women. The first formal complaint was lodged in February by former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, who accused him of raping her when she was 20 and later introducing her to Gérald Marie, the former European head of the Elite modelling agency, whom she also accuses of rape. Siad consistently denied all charges and had not yet been questioned by investigators. His lawyer, Menya Arab-Tigrine, told Agence France-Presse that her client was innocent and suggested that if he died of a heart attack, the “unbearable waiting, the pressure and the anxiety” of the judicial process would have contributed.

Karlsson and other alleged victims expressed frustration and shock. “He was very close to being arrested. We worked so hard for this, trying to have justice,” she said. Lisa Brinkworth, a British journalist and co-founder of the support collective Victorious Angels, described the death as “devastating” and said it felt like victims were being “denied justice.” Lawyers for the complainants accused the Paris prosecutor’s office of a “serious failure” to act swiftly, while the prosecutor’s office stated that the wider investigation into human trafficking linked to Epstein’s network in France would continue.

Siad’s death echoes earlier fatalities among figures connected to Epstein. The financier himself died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, and French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was accused of procuring women for Epstein, was found hanged in his Paris prison cell in 2022. Siad’s name appears in more than 1,000 pages of the Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice, and his decade-long correspondence with Epstein, in which he sent photographs and details of young women, has been widely reported in French and Swedish media. The Nanterre prosecutor’s office has not yet released a cause of death, and the autopsy findings are pending.