A week after the publication of more than three million new documents concerning Jeffrey Epstein, several personalities from the African continent are cited. France 24 disentangles the truth from the falsehood for three of them: Karim Wade, Robert Mugabe and Jacob Zuma.

Published on: 07/02/2026 - 07:00

Clarification: no charges are brought against the people mentioned in this article. The presence of their names in documents published by the US Department of Justice does not imply any wrongdoing on their part.

Karim Wade, “one of the most important figures in West Africa”

The son of the former president of Senegal (2000-2012) Abdoulaye Wade is cited more than 500 times in the Epstein file. Alleged exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein date back to the early 2010s, when Karim Wade held the ministries of International Cooperation, Air Transport, Infrastructure and Energy.

In one of them, on November 17, 2010, the American financier puts forward investment hypotheses in Senegal for the years to come: "I think you have to consider new technologies for the next five to ten years. Internet gambling, servers that allow people to 'do business' in Senegal without having to go there", writes Jeffrey Epstein, who probably met Karim Wade two days before, according to the document available online.

Also read: What we know about the Epstein-Mandelson links, which are affecting the British establishment

At the end of Abdoulaye Wade's second term, Macky Sall was elected president of Senegal in 2012. The following year, Karim Wade was arrested and detained for three years after being suspected of illicit enrichment, before receiving a presidential pardon. Despite his legal troubles, Jeffrey Epstein still seems to consider him an important figure in West African politics.

In any case, this is the content of an exchange he had, on November 29, 2016, with Larry Summers, former American Minister of Finance under Bill Clinton. “Who is the guy you arranged a meeting with for me?”, asks Epstein, the man who was also president of Harvard University in the 2000s, about Karim Wade.

“He is very educated and one of the most important figures in West Africa,” replies the sex criminal. "However, to be completely honest, he was imprisoned in order to prevent him from running against the current president. He is currently in Qatar, awaiting his almost guaranteed return to power." In 2019 and 2024, Karim Wade will try to run for the Senegalese presidential election, but his candidacy will be invalidated each time.

Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe seen as a “field of experimentation”

The former president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe (1987-2017), who died in 2019, is cited around thirty times in documents concerning Jeffrey Epstein. The leader of Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, who later became a despot in his country, was the subject of an exchange of emails between the American financier and the Japanese entrepreneur Joichi (Joy) Ito, as noted by the BBC.

Read alsoHow Russia uses the controversies of the Epstein affair for its propaganda

On June 12, 2015, Jeffrey Epstein sent an article from The Guardian newspaper to Joi Ito about the devaluation of Zimbabwe's currency. The subject of the exchange between the two men? “Fertile lands to explore”, which explains why shortly after the American financier proposed to his recipient: “We should approach (Robert Mugabe, Editor’s note) and offer him a new currency/economy.” “Are you friends?” asks Joi Ito.

“No, but I can easily attract his attention. Zimbabwe would be an excellent testing ground, and it seems to be a magnificent country,” replies Jeffrey Epstein. There are, however, no other traces of such an initiative in the documents published by the US Department of Justice.

Joichi Ito, for his part, resigned from his position as director of the Media Lab research center at the prestigious MIT in 2019. An announcement which took place the day after the publication of an investigation by The New Yorker pointing out the financial links between the Japanese entrepreneur and the sex criminal.

Jacob Zuma: an official trip, a model and a firm denial

The former president of South Africa (2009-2018) is mentioned 89 times in the three million documents revealed a week ago by the US Department of Justice.

Also read: Epstein affair: what we know about the disturbing attempts at rapprochement with the Kremlin

An exchange from March 4, 2010 attracts attention. In a first email, a certain Mark Lloyd, who presents himself as a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, addresses a woman called Vera. "I have been asked to help organize a small dinner tomorrow evening for President Jacob Zuma of South Africa at the Ritz Hotel at 7 p.m.," he wrote, before continuing: "Jeffrey suggested I invite you, as you would undoubtedly bring a touch of glamor to this evening."

Epstein's famous friend ends his message by asking Vera her full name to "present to the president (South African, Editor's note) a list of guests in advance" for this dinner which is to take place in London. The woman – whose age is unknown – responded positively to the invitation a few hours later. “I come from Russia and I have lived in London for two years. (...) I have been a model for six years and I have lived in Paris, New York, Barcelona and Japan,” she specifies in her response.

The Zuma Foundation has firmly denied any link between the former South African president and Jeffrey Epstein. Its spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi rejected any involvement by Jacob Zuma, describing the interpretation of these exchanges as “speculative narrative construction disguised as investigative journalism”.

Sherwin Bryce-Pease, a journalist for the South African public media SABC News, considered it "very unlikely" and "not supported by evidence" that Jeffrey Epstein could have been in London during Jacob Zuma's official visit to the United Kingdom in March 2010. According to Sherwin Bryce-Pease, the American child molester "was released from prison on July 22, 2009, on probation and under house arrest in Florida for a year, until August 2010."

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