New conspiracy theories maintain that Jeffrey Epstein is alive and nicely – Worldwide Dispatch

The publication of the Epstein information by the US Division of Justice on January 30 has shone a light-weight on the troubling hyperlinks between the financier convicted of intercourse crimes and numerous well-known political figures and enterprise leaders. The discharge of those paperwork has additionally sparked conspiracy theories that Jeffrey Epstein remains to be alive. Even if Epstein was found useless in his cell in a New York correctional centre on August 10, 2019, some social media customers are sharing what they are saying is proof of life. Seems, nevertheless, there is no such thing as a foundation to this “proof”.

• Is Epstein alive and nicely in Israel? Nope, these pictures have been generated by AI 

“Israel faked his loss of life,” claimed a social media consumer on February 5 in a submit on X that has since garnered greater than six million views. The submit options what he claims is a photograph of Epstein, alive, sporting white hair and a shaggy beard and strolling the streets of Tel Aviv in Israel.

Nevertheless, the picture is solely pretend: it was generated by synthetic intelligence (AI). In the event you run the picture via a reverse picture search (click on right here to take a look at our helpful information), it leads you to the unique model of the picture posted on the Reddit discussion board “hardaiimages”, which shares AI-generated pictures.  

The AI-generated picture on Reddit options the folks’s full our bodies, whereas the X picture is cropped on the waistline. This crop was seemingly made to chop out the indication that the picture was generated by synthetic intelligence.

In the event you look carefully, there’s a diamond form on the bottom-right nook of the unique picture posted on Reddit: it’s the emblem of Nano Banana, Google’s synthetic picture generator which is built-in into Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot.  

Google Lens additionally signifies that the picture posted on Reddit was “created with Google’s AI”. Photographs generated by Nano Banana even have an invisible watermark that may be learn by SynthID, the instrument for detecting AI-generated content material in Google Lens.

Social media customers additionally took to X on February 7, 2026 to share one other picture purported to point out Epstein, garnering greater than 2.4 million views. In it, Epstein has lengthy hair and a shaggy beard and is sporting a black hoodie. Behind him, you’ll be able to see a automotive with pink taillights. 

Journalist Henk van Ess reported that the picture was primarily based on an actual photograph that had been doctored utilizing AI. 

In the event you run this picture via Tineye, a instrument for finishing up reverse picture searches, you then’ll discover the unique photograph was printed on Could 27, 2020 – after Epstein’s loss of life – by British tabloid The Solar. The picture was taken from a Netflix documentary launched in 2020.  The automotive with the pink taillights that seems within the picture on X additionally seems on this picture, and Epstein is sporting the identical garments in each pictures.

Within the unique photograph, Epstein is clean-shaven with quick hair. The picture that circulated on X was doctored, in all probability utilizing AI, to make his hair and beard lengthy. 

• Is Epstein nonetheless enjoying Fortnite? No – Fortnite claims that the account belongs to another person

Social media customers took to X on February 5 to share an much more incongruous so-called “proof of life” for Epstein. They claimed that the financier was enjoying the online game Fortnite in August 2025, six years after the announcement of his loss of life. A submit that includes this declare garnered greater than 7.8 million views on X.

As proof, these social media customers shared a screengrab of a Fortnite consumer with the deal with “littlestjeffl1”. They argue the profile relies in Israel, pointing to the presence of an Israeli flag on the avatar.

Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a foundation to this declare. It does seem that, at one time, Epstein did use the deal with “littlestjeffl1” (you’ll be able to see this on the US Division of Justice web site if you happen to search the key phrases “littlestjeffl1”). Nevertheless, the paperwork posted by the division point out that he used this deal with for his YouTube account. There isn’t any point out of a Fortnite account with the deal with littlestjeffl1 within the Epstein information.

A Fortnite official took to X to say that the account littlestjeffl1 didn’t belong to Jeffrey Epstein. An present account proprietor modified his title to this deal with: 

“A couple of days in the past, an present Fortnite account proprietor modified their username from one thing completely unrelated to littlestjeff1, following the revelation of littlestjeff1 as a reputation on YouTube.”

The Fortnite official added that there was no signal of the e-mail addresses talked about within the Epstein information in Epic, the platform that helps the Fortnite recreation. 

“Because the public doc releases [of the Epstein files], folks have created Fortnite accounts with similar-looking e mail addresses and consumer names,” reads the X submit from Fortnite.