What was claimed
Images show Jeffrey Epstein recently spotted in Israel.
Our verdict
False. These are old images of Epstein that have been edited to make him look older. Epstein died in 2019.
Old photos of Jeffrey Epstein edited to look like he was recently spotted in Israel
Images that appear to show Jeffrey Epstein “spotted alive in Tel Aviv” in Israel have been edited to include grey hair and a beard.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019. Using reverse image search Full Fact traced the original, unedited photos to one taken in New York in 2015, and the other to a photo that has been online for several years.
We were able to match the collar, sunglasses and background in the edited image on the left of this post, to a real image of Epstein taken in 2015. We also matched the glasses, jacket logo, outline of the car and blue bars in the background of this edited image to the old press photograph that may also have been taken in 2015. Epstein has short hair and is clean shaven in both of the original images.
Altered and manipulated videos and images can cause misinformation to spread widely online. It’s important to consider whether something is genuine before sharing. Our guides to spotting misleading images and videos can help you to do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because these images are old and have been edited to age Epstein with grey hair and a beard. Epstein died in 2019.