A fresh batch of documents from the Department of Justice has brought renewed attention to a controversial discovery made during the 2019 raid on Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan residence — a fraudulent Austrian passport issued under the name “Marius Robert Fortelni.”
The document, catalogued in the file labelledEFTA00021627, was found inside a locked safe alongside 48 loose diamonds and approximately $70,000 in cash. Federal agents recovered the items during a July 2019 search of Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion following his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
The passport was issued in May 1982 by authorities in Vienna and remained valid until 1987. It bore Epstein’s photograph but listed his name as Marius Robert Fortelni, identified his birthplace as Vienna, and stated his residence as Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the birth year was recorded as 1954 — one year different from Epstein’s actual birth year of 1953.
Meanwhile, contrary to claims by Epstein’s legal team that the passport was never put in use, the document allegedly contained entry and exit stamps from multiple countries. These included the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Saudi Arabia during 1982 and 1983.
Federal prosecutors pointed to these stamps as evidence that the passport was actively utilised. The presence of travel records, they argued, undercut the defence’s claim that the document was retained solely for emergency scenarios.
Epstein’s attorneys had previously contended that the passport was obtained for “personal protection” while travelling in the Middle East. According to their explanation, Epstein feared hijacking or kidnapping risks and intended to conceal his Jewish identity if faced with such a threat. Prosecutors, however, dismissed this justification, stating that possession of a second identity with international travel history raised serious legal concerns.
Investigators later identified a real Austrian individual named Marius Fortelni who had lived in Saudi Arabia during the same period the passport was issued. Reports suggest he later worked as a real estate developer in Southampton, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida — locations closely associated with Epstein’s own property holdings.
However, Times Now could not independently very whether the passport was a sophisticated forgery or an authentic Austrian passport that had been altered. In 2022, Austria’s Ministry of the Interior reportedly stated it had no official record of the passport number in its national system, further complicating the matter. The alias resurfaced in the 2026 release of additionalEpstein files, has has promped fresh questions about the extent of the financier's international movements in the early 1980s.
The discovery of the alias passport has long been cited by investigators as indicative of deliberate identity concealment. While Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 before standing trial, the presence of a secondary identity — complete with international stamps — has continued to fuel speculation about the scope of his overseas connections.
Legal analysts caution that while the passport demonstrates the use of an alias, it does not, on its own, establish broader criminal conspiracies. Nonetheless, its existence adds to a pattern of financial opacity and unusual personal documentation uncovered during federal investigations.
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