33 Guns Stolen from Zorro Ranch. The Serial Numbers Never Reached Police. Here Is Why.

On the night of August 27, 2018, someone cut the fence at Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, broke into three separate residences, and stole 33 firearms from a gun safe. The property managers were sleeping in a remote area of the 7,600-acre property. By the time they discovered the break-in the next morning, the burglars were long gone, leaving only tire tracks leading south through the dirt.

This is not a story about a burglary. It is a story about what happened next: how Epstein's attorney intercepted the evidence, how the serial numbers never reached law enforcement, and how a New Mexico State Police case was quietly closed without resolution. The 33 firearms remain untraceable to this day.

The documents that tell this story are emails from Epstein's own staff, released through the DOJ's EFTA dataset. They have not been reported in this level of detail by any outlet until now.

The Break-In

At approximately 7:00 PM on Sunday, August 26, 2018, property managers Amber and Steve Chavez performed their routine daily check of the ranch grounds and found everything in order. Sometime overnight, intruders cut through fencing, drove onto the property, and hit three buildings.

The first target was a garage on the southeast side of the property, where a large window was smashed out. Inside, the burglars cracked the combination lock on a gun safe and emptied it. The second residence, a log cabin overlooking a large valley, was ransacked. Items were scattered across the floor and a large antique stove top was pulled off its base. The third building, roughly 200 yards east, had its back door left unlocked. The burglars took antique lamps and an antique weapon from a living room display.

Staff members Steve and Carlos followed tire tracks from the garage leading south toward Larry Visoski's residence. Along the route, they recovered a bag containing ammunition, a cleaning kit, a Sharpie pen, and a manicure set. The tracks continued for one to two miles before reaching a dirt road off the property.

Officer Jordan Burd of the New Mexico State Police documented the scene in Report #2018-20964. He photographed the broken window, the smashed safe, the recovered bag, and the tire tracks. He noted that once serial numbers for the stolen firearms were received, they would be documented in a supplemental report and entered into the National Crime Information Center.

He never received those serial numbers.

The Inventory

What Officer Burd did not know was that a detailed inventory was already being prepared inside the ranch.

On August 28, Epstein emailed staff with a single request: "id like folders descibing guns." Not a question about other stolen items. Not a security concern. The guns.

That evening, Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant at HBRK Associates and co-executor of his estate, worked through the safe's contents with a staff member named Cynthia. They compared every remaining firearm against an existing inventory list, checking serial numbers, photographing each gun with its serial number visible, and documenting make and model information. They also photographed ammunition, 9mm magazines, a decorative revolver, an ammo reloader, multiple shooting targets, and gun cleaning materials from the top shelf of the safe.

Their conclusion: "According to what guns are accounted for to what is on the list, we are missing 33 guns."

At 2:17 AM on August 29, Kahn forwarded the complete inventory to Epstein with an attached PDF file named "ZMC_-_Guninventoty.pdf." The file contained serial numbers, photographs, and make and model information for every firearm. Guns that were accounted for were crossed out and check-marked on the inventory list. Everything law enforcement would need to trace the stolen weapons was in that file.

The Interception

Later that morning, Zorro Ranch staff sent Epstein a direct question:

"Please advise if we are to forward the list of stollen weapons to Office Byrd of NM State Police"

Epstein's response came at 12:26 PM:

"send to darren all communication from here on through him"

"Darren" is Darren K. Indyke, Epstein's personal attorney and co-executor of his estate, whose office was located at 575 Lexington Avenue, 4th Floor, New York.

At 4:59 PM, Zorro Ranch staff confirmed: "Ok will do."

From that moment, a legal wall stood between the gun inventory and Officer Burd. The PDF containing serial numbers, photographs, and weapon details that had been prepared overnight was redirected through Epstein's attorney instead of being sent to the investigating officer.

The Closed Case

According to reporting by the Daily Dot, Officer Burd made repeated attempts to obtain the serial numbers over the following weeks. He called Brice Gordon (the ranch manager, based in the U.S. Virgin Islands) on September 18. He called Amber Chavez on September 19. He called Steve Chavez on September 25.

None of the calls were returned.

On September 25, 2018, Officer Burd closed the case. No supplemental report was filed. No serial numbers were entered into NCIC. No ATF notification was made. The 33 firearms, with their serial numbers carefully documented in a PDF that Epstein's staff had prepared within hours of the burglary, became untraceable.

The ZMC gun inventory PDF has never appeared in any DOJ document release. The EFTA dataset contains the emails that reference it and confirm its existence, but the attachment itself was not included. It may exist in Darren Indyke's files, in archived email servers, or in FBI records. As of March 2026, it has not been made public.

The Hidden AR-15

There is another layer to this story.

On August 28 at 10:07 PM, before completing the full inventory, Richard Kahn sent Epstein a separate email flagging something Brice Gordon had deliberately left out of his own report:

"what Brice leaves out from email is that AR-15 is missing. larry questioned steve who then says brice has an AR-15 in his house. It appears brice takes Larry's AR-15 to his house and brings back to safe before each of larry visits. All info above was from larry...who was clearly very frustrated. brice neglects to include this all in fact pattern below."

Gordon, the ranch manager, had been taking Larry Visoski's AR-15 from the safe, keeping it at his own house on the property, and returning it before each of Visoski's visits. This arrangement was unknown to Visoski until the burglary prompted a full accounting.

Whether Gordon's concealment of the AR-15 is connected to the burglary itself remains an open question. What is clear is that Gordon knew the safe's contents well enough to move weapons in and out without detection, and that he chose not to disclose the missing AR-15 in his initial report.

According to the Daily Dot, Brice Gordon disappeared from New Mexico after Epstein's death in August 2019. A 2020 report by The Sun said he had "vanished" from the state. He had been managing the ranch since approximately 2003.

A Pattern of Obstruction

The attorney interception of the gun inventory was not an isolated incident. It mirrors another documented case of obstruction at Zorro Ranch, eleven years earlier.

On February 13, 2007, FBI agents interviewed Brice Gordon at the guest house about massage operations at the ranch. Gordon told agents that masseuses were hired locally, that his wife arranged the appointments, and that he could provide the names and payment records of the therapists. According to the FBI's own report, before Gordon could hand over those names, he received a phone call from Epstein's "main office" ordering him to stop speaking with agents. The interview was immediately terminated.

In both cases, the same mechanism was deployed: when law enforcement got close to specific operational details, whether massage therapist identities or gun serial numbers, Epstein's legal apparatus shut down the flow of information.

The Ranch Nobody Searched

Federal investigators never searched Zorro Ranch. When Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, the FBI raided his Manhattan townhouse, his Palm Beach mansion, and his Caribbean island. Zorro Ranch was not included.

Not after his arrest. Not after his death on August 10, 2019. Not after multiple victims testified to sexual abuse at the property. Not after a witness told investigators in July 2019 that the ranch's former foreman, a man named David Gonzalez (now deceased), had told her that "Epstein would fly girls in from Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV to entertain at his parties." The same witness said her brother, who lived on the same highway, reported that Epstein held parties at another ranch in the Village of Manzano near Estancia, with guests staying for roughly a month at a time and returning every three to four months.

The New York Times reported in July 2019 that Epstein had discussed plans to "seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch." According to that reporting, a scientist at a dinner hosted by Epstein told virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier that Epstein's stated goal was "to have 20 women at a time impregnated" at the 33,000-square-foot property. Epstein had expressed interest in transhumanism, the idea of improving the human population through genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, a concept that critics have compared to eugenics.

In 2019, New Mexico's Attorney General opened a state investigation into the ranch. Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York requested that the state close it. New Mexico complied.

Seven Years Later

In February 2026, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez ordered the investigation reopened. The catalyst: revelations in the DOJ's EFTA file releases.

Among those revelations was an email dated November 21, 2019, in which an individual claiming to be a former ranch employee alleged that "two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G" in the hills outside the ranch. The sender, whose identity radio host Eddy Aragon says he shared with the FBI, offered to provide videos of abuse for one Bitcoin. The allegation remains unverified.

In March 2026, a separate tipster provided New Mexico lawmakers with photographs of what appeared to be grave-like plots on the property. Kyle Hartsock, Director of Special Investigations at the New Mexico Department of Justice, told lawmakers the tip was "being looked into."

On March 10, 2026, state investigators began a physical search of the ranch with the cooperation of current owner Don Huffines, who purchased the property in 2023 through San Rafael Ranch LLC. The New Mexico Legislature established the bipartisan Epstein Truth Commission, with subpoena power and a $2 million budget, to probe allegations that Zorro Ranch was a site of sexual abuse and trafficking.

Brice Gordon has not been located. The FBI has not commented on whether it investigated the burial allegations. The 33 firearms stolen in August 2018, their serial numbers documented and then intercepted by an attorney, remain untraceable.

What the Documents Show

The EFTA emails establish a clear chain of events:

The burglary was discovered on August 27, 2018. Within 36 hours, Epstein's staff had completed a professional inventory with serial numbers, photographs, and a PDF attachment. That inventory was sent to Epstein. When staff asked whether to forward it to the investigating officer, Epstein directed all further communications through his attorney. The officer spent weeks trying to reach ranch staff. Nobody called back. The case was closed without the serial numbers. The weapons were never entered into NCIC.

The FBI assessed in August 2020 that the ranch may also have housed stolen artifacts, including an 18th-century church bell missing from San Jose de Gracia Church in Trampas, New Mexico, assigning "medium confidence" to the possibility based on photographs of the ranch's interior.

In March 2001, Ghislaine Maxwell submitted a proposal to Epstein for a $37,200 landscaping contract to seed areas around the main house. The memo, written on Zorro Ranch letterhead, closes with "Seeding can begin after May 15th if approved." It is one of many documents placing Maxwell in an operational role at the ranch long before the wider public understood her involvement.

The ranch was purchased by Epstein in 1993 from former New Mexico Governor Bruce King. Members of the King family appear in Epstein's contact book. Epstein donated $15,000 to Gary King, Bruce King's son and former New Mexico Attorney General, in 2006 through the Zorro Trust, and an additional $35,600 to his 2014 gubernatorial campaign through Virgin Islands-based shell companies designed, according to state campaign records, to avoid press scrutiny.

After his 2008 conviction for sex crimes in Florida, Epstein briefly appeared on New Mexico's sex offender registry before being removed two days later through a loophole: the victim in the Florida case was listed as 17, and New Mexico's registry law at the time required a victim under 16. He was never required to register again. The state continued to lease him public land.

The Missing Inventory

The gun inventory PDF is the thread that connects all of this. It was created. It was sent. It was intercepted. It was never delivered to law enforcement.

The New Mexico Truth Commission has subpoena power. If that power is exercised to compel production of the ZMC gun inventory from Darren Indyke's files, from archived email servers, or from FBI records, the 33 serial numbers could finally be entered into NCIC. If any of those weapons have surfaced in other investigations, at crime scenes, in seizures, or in subsequent sales, the connections would become visible.

Until that happens, the case remains what it has been since September 25, 2018: closed, with the evidence locked behind an attorney's wall, and the weapons somewhere out in the world without a trace.