Newly released emails appear to show how a glamorous niece of the president of the Ivory Coast acted as a fixer for paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein by introducing him to powerful politicians and young women.
Nina Keita, whose uncle Alassane Ouattara has led the West African nation since 2010, was named in the three million documents published on January 30 by the US Department of Justice.
According to the report, Nina began corresponding with Epstein in 2011.
At the time, she was a model who had worked in France before later returning home to take up a senior role at state oil storage firm Gestoci. She is now married to Employment Minister Adam Kamara.
The emails suggest Keita visited Epstein in New York, flew on his private jet, and organised a trip for him to Abidjan, where he was scheduled to meet the president and senior ministers to discuss investment projects.
But the correspondence also takes a darker turn, according to The Times.
In May 2011, Keita asked Epstein if he wanted to meet one of her friends in Paris. He replied: ‘How old is she tell me about her? Do you have other friends.’
Keita responded: ‘She is 25. But she has a lot of friends too in Paris. You can meet her first and ask her, I’m sure she’ll be happy to do that.’
Months later, after an apparent meeting at the Ritz in Paris, Epstein wrote: ‘Ask [redacted] to send pictures of her sister. I prefer under 25.’
When none were sent, Keita forwarded photographs herself.
The same year, Epstein floated selling his Boeing 727 – believed to be the so-called Lolita Express – telling Keita: ‘I am told your uncle is trying to charter my 727. The same one you flew on to Europe. I suggest he buys it instead.’
In January 2012, Keita set up a packed itinerary in Abidjan, including meetings with the president, the economy and interior ministers, and senior officials, including the late Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who later became prime minister.
Ahead of one engagement, she wrote: ‘Also what’s your maximum bed time? Hamed has something planned for you but I’m afraid it might go very late ( dinner at his house with wife + drinks somewhere+ private night at his penthouse( he knows what you like).’
Years later, Keita also appeared central to efforts to free Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.
After Wade was jailed for corruption in 2015, she begged Epstein for financial help to hire US lobbyists.
‘[Wade] is asking again if you could help with hiring a lobbying firm ( as I previously told you). Jeffrey, he really, really needs your help… A lot of his friends have disappeared, he has few one left and most people are afraid to help.’
Emails indicate Epstein sent $100,000. When Wade was freed the following year, Keita wrote: ‘Thank you for everything you have done for him!!!!’
It comes as over 18,000 images and 2,000 videos or 14 hours of footage – were published by the US Department of Justice on January 30 in a tranche of over three million files related to the late child sex offender.