Section 01
The Kenyatta Access
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. Chairman and CEO of DP World — among the largest port operators on earth. Named more than 9,400 times in Epstein's emails. Described by Epstein as one of his "most trusted friends." Named in the February 2026 DOJ release as a co-conspirator in the trafficking ring — he has not been charged. He resigned from DP World on February 13, 2026, days after the files became public.
April 9, 2013 — the inauguration. Sulayem emailed Epstein: "I am in Nairobi for the inauguration of Uhuru Kenyatta as president of Kenya, whom I know very well."
Epstein replied three hours later: "Any plans for NY?"
Access to a newly inaugurated head of state, offered and received as casual social currency. Sulayem was not asking Epstein for anything. He was demonstrating standing.
October 24, 2014 — Mombasa. Eighteen months later, Sulayem wrote again: "I am in Mombasa had a three hour meeting with president Uhuru Kenyatta we are going to build a big logistic park to serve Kenya south Sudan Uganda central African republic and Rwanda."
A three-hour meeting with a head of state, and a five-country regional logistics plan, reported to a registered sex offender in New York the same day.
Sultan
Epstein, three hours later: "Any plans for NY?"
Section 02
What Followed: The Port Concessions
The expansion. The year after the Mombasa meeting, DP World began rapid expansion across East and West Africa, securing port concessions spanning 20 to 30 years in Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal, Angola, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Kenya deal — March 2022. Kenya's Finance Ministry entered a controversial concession granting DP World rights to operate berths at Mombasa, Lamu, and Kisumu ports.
The controversy. Kenya Kwanza Coalition leaders accused Kenyatta of secretly auctioning national assets, with claims the agreement was sealed during what was publicly billed as opposition leader Raila Odinga's birthday party in Mombasa. The letter requesting DP World's proposal was addressed directly to Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
The collapse. The Kenya deal ultimately collapsed amid election-year politics. The Tanzania concession held — in October 2023 DP World signed a 30-year agreement for four berths at Dar es Salaam Port, $250M initial commitment potentially growing to $1 billion.
Still active in 2019. A January 23, 2019 email — six months before Epstein's arrest — shows Sulayem replying about a trip to Nigeria and Saudi Arabia for a DP World agreement signing, then plans to "fly to Uganda and Tanzania."
No legal finding connects Sulayem's access-brokering with Epstein to DP World's specific contract awards. The correlation is documented:
Sulayem reports Kenyatta access to Epstein in 2013 and 2014. DP World secures continent-wide port concessions from 2015 onward.
What the files establish is that a convicted sex offender's self-described "most trusted friend" was trading access to African heads of state as social currency in the same years his company was securing 20-to-30-year control over African port infrastructure.
No regulatory body has investigated this relationship.
BII — the British government's development finance institution and a DP World investor in four African ports — suspended all new investment following the EFTA revelations:
"We are shocked by the facts emerging in the Epstein files regarding Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. In light of the allegations, we will not be making any new investments with DP World until the required actions have been taken by the company."
Canadian pension fund La Caisse also suspended ties. Both resumed after Sulayem's resignation.
Section 03
The Coastal Flag
This section describes references in investigative materials within the released files. These are flags and characterisations in investigative documents, not established findings, and they are reported here as they appear in Kenyan and regional press coverage of the files. No individual has been charged in connection with these references.
What the files reference. Per Daily Nation (Kenya) and Dataphyte reporting, the DOJ files reference Kenya and Somalia as locations flagged for paedophile activity. Coastal towns including Malindi are described as areas frequented by individuals involved in such activity.
The pre-existing geography. Malindi has been documented for decades by Italian and German investigators as a destination for European sex tourists targeting children. Its appearance in the Epstein files connects his network to an exploitation geography that already existed — it does not establish that he created it.
Mombasa as conduit. Regional reporting documents children from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Somalia being trafficked through Mombasa. The files describe Tanzania and Senegal as transit points in Epstein's own operations.
The Kenyatta reference. One file claims Epstein "knew the former Kenyan president well." The basis for this characterisation is not established in publicly available materials beyond the Sulayem correspondence.
The Prince Andrew reference. Daily Post Nigeria and Dataphyte note a reference to a "safari" involving Prince Andrew in Kenya-related correspondence. The details and whether any criminal conduct is involved have not been established. Prince Andrew has denied all allegations relating to Epstein's trafficking.
Kenya illustrates a convergence that recurs across the African files: the same coastal infrastructure that makes a location valuable for ports makes it valuable for trafficking.
Mombasa is East Africa's principal deep-water port, the gateway for five landlocked countries, and a documented trafficking conduit for children from four conflict-affected states.
DP World wanted it for the first reason. The files flag it for the second. Whether those two facts are connected in any operational sense is not established — but they occupy the same geography in the same documents.
The East African trafficking pipeline — source countries, transit routes, and how the modelling agency structure intersects with it — is documented in the Modeling & Trafficking report →
Assessment
What Kenya Shows
Kenya is the clearest demonstration that Epstein's power was not primarily transactional. He sold nothing to Kenya. He bought nothing there. He never, on the available record, set foot in the country.
What the Kenya files show is a man so valuable to know that the chairman of one of the world's largest port operators emailed him from a presidential inauguration and from a head-of-state meeting — not to ask for anything, but to report.
That is the asset Epstein actually accumulated: a position in the social hierarchy of the globally powerful such that access to a president became something you told him about.
What did Sulayem's Epstein relationship actually produce? No regulator has examined the correlation between his documented presidential access and DP World's concession awards.
Did Kenyatta know? No document addresses whether the Kenyan president knew his inauguration and Mombasa meeting were being reported to Epstein.
What is in the remaining Sulayem correspondence? He is named 9,400+ times. Only a fraction has been examined publicly.
Ports & Logistics thematic report →
Tanzania country file →
Africa Hub →