For a trip to London for dinner with millionaire Mark, the girls from the modeling agency "Vacatio" could receive valuable gifts.
Anna told the publication "Ir" that Mark had been to Riga, where he drank champagne with the agency's director Ieva Lipinā in the agency's premises. Who is Mark? Anna doesn't really know, as young models are not private detectives. But after the girls had some champagne, Mark offered them to come to London with him. Ieva Lipinā told the girls that it was their choice. She did not gain anything from it, only good relations with Mark, who, as Anna knows, also paid for Lipinā's and her family's trips. One of Anna's acquaintances went to dinner in Riga with Lipinā, Mark, and other models. As a gift, she received an "iPhone".
Last week, while analyzing the declassified Epstein files in the U.S., "Ir" already reported on his agents Jean-Luc Brunel and Daniella Siade, for whom Riga was a favorite place for recruiting young girls. Epstein was constantly looking for new victims, especially in Eastern Europe and Russia.
"Ir" reached out to several women who worked in Latvian modeling agencies to ask them about the activities of Epstein's agents in Riga. We learned about other instances where young girls were involved in the entertainment of wealthy men unrelated to the modeling business. Testimonies from two women point to the agency "Vacatio", which operated with minor changes in name from the late 1990s until its liquidation in 2023.
Over the past ten years, 126 people who were victims of human trafficking have sought help from the "Marta" center. Among them were 89 women, mostly subjected to sexual exploitation. Over the years, there have been cases related to modeling agencies, but the center's director Iluta Lāce no longer remembers specific names and timeframes.
"I only remember how difficult it was for us to protect these girls because the normalization of sexual violence, the demand for accountability from the victim - even from a child - was very widespread."
One case of human trafficking related to a modeling agency occurred relatively recently, but it is still unclear whether it was a real modeling agency or if criminals were just pretending to represent it. Moreover, the cases that come to the attention of "Marta" are just the tip of the iceberg, says Lāce. Sophisticated mechanisms are used to recruit women. "Everyone has some vulnerability," says Lāce. Economic vulnerability is often exploited.
