State investigators descended on Jeffrey Epstein’s secluded New Mexico ranch Monday, launching the first known thorough search of the property where victims have long alleged they were abused and trafficked. The operation at the remote Zorro Ranch, about 30 miles south of Santa Fe, comes after New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez reopened an investigation last month prompted by revelations in recently unsealed FBI files.
The search is being conducted with the full cooperation of the current owners, the family of Texas Republican candidate Don Huffines, who purchased the sprawling 7,500-acre property in 2023. Huffines, who won the Republican primary for Texas comptroller last week, has renamed the estate San Rafael Ranch and plans to transform it into a Christian retreat.
The renewed investigation stems from an anonymous email sent to a New Mexico radio host in November 2019, just months after Epstein’s death. The sender, claiming to be a former Zorro Ranch employee, made a chilling allegation: that Epstein ordered the bodies of two young girls buried in the hills outside the ranch.
According to the email, the girls were foreign nationals who died “by strangulation during rough, fetish sex”. The anonymous tipster demanded one bitcoin in exchange for video evidence allegedly showing Epstein raping minors on the property.
It remains unclear whether the FBI ever investigated the tip after receiving it in 2019.
New Mexico’s initial investigation into Epstein’s activities was closed in 2019 at the request of federal prosecutors in New York, who were building their own case against the financier. State officials say the newly unsealed FBI files contain revelations that “warrant further examination”.
Torrez acknowledged the challenges ahead. In a column for the Albuquerque Journal, he wrote that there would be “real obstacles” to finding evidence of potential offenses given the passage of time and changes in property ownership. Still, he made a promise: “The people of New Mexico, and those who were harmed, are entitled to a complete and transparent accounting of what we found and what we did not”.
Beyond the criminal investigation, New Mexico lawmakers have taken the extraordinary step of establishing a bipartisan “truth commission” equipped with subpoena power. The four-member panel, led by Santa Fe state Representative Andrea Romero, will investigate what happened at Zorro Ranch and examine why earlier probes fell short.
“Nobody has ever visited the ranch in any official capacity to obtain information or cover what even the lay of the land is,” Romero told Newsweek. She pointed to past failures, saying federal authorities effectively shut down New Mexico’s 2019 investigation by telling the state to “stand down”.
The commission plans to release an interim report by July 31 and a final report by December 31.
Don Huffines has positioned himself as eager to help. In a statement to the New York Times, he called the search “a welcome step toward truth and justice”. His family has been “fully co-operating with the New Mexico DOJ to organize a thorough and legitimate investigation into any possible wrongdoing by the property’s former owner”.
Huffines purchased the property at public auction years after Epstein’s death, with proceeds reportedly benefiting Epstein’s victims. He has emphasized that no law enforcement agency ever requested access before this month, despite his family’s ownership being public knowledge since 2024.
“We have always maintained an open line of communication with local authorities,” he wrote on social media.
Investigators are now combing through the 30,000-square-foot hilltop mansion and surrounding grassland, though officials have not specified how long the operation will last or what specific areas are being searched. The public has been asked to stay away from the area, which recently became the site of sporadic gatherings and protests.
The property’s dark history includes survivor testimony naming Zorro Ranch as a site of abuse. Two of the four victims who testified at Ghislaine Maxwell’s federal sex-trafficking trial said they were assaulted there. Civil lawsuits have also named the ranch, including filings from the late Virginia Giuffre, who was pictured at a Santa Fe museum while staying on the property at age 19.
For survivors and advocates, the search represents a long-overdue reckoning. As Romero put it: “Finally we are able to take a look inside a property that has created a years-long mystery”.
