Grizzly Research is short shares of Accor SA (EPA:AC).
- Accor SA (“Accor”, Euronext Paris:AC) is a French multinational hospitality company that owns, manages and franchises luxurious hotels, resorts and vacation properties around the globe.
- Accor promotes itself as an industry leader in the fight against human trafficking and sexual exploitation. We believe our investigation’s insights stand in stark contrast to Accor’s promises.
- Our investigators emailed hundreds of Accor hotels.
- We effectively requested in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, service to facilitate the transfer of Ukrainian orphans with the explicit purpose of adoption by Russian parents. This is considered a war crime for which Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
- We contacted Accor hotels in over 25 countries to book rooms for underage girls and unrelated adult males in an obvious sexual context.
- Our requests were engineered to trigger as many human trafficking red flags as possible, combining minors, an active warzone, an unnamed modeling agency, and stay for over a month with no parents or other legal guardians.
- When we got positive replies, we tried to push further by requesting champagne, condoms, and lubricants for rooms booked for underage girls and unrelated adults, or inquiring about secrecy from the French headquarters and Western regulators for the transfer of Ukrainian children for adoption in Russia.
The replies are shocking:
- All 18 Russian Accor hotels that engaged agreed to host orphans from Ukraine en route to adoption by Russians. Multiple hotels explicitly assured the investigator that sensitive information is not shared with Accor’s French headquarters and the Ukrainian embassy.
- Three Accor hotels across Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan also agreed to service our request to host Ukrainian orphans and told us they would keep the arrangement confidential from the press, from Accor’s French head office, and from Ukrainian embassies.
- Accor hotels in over 20 countries agreed to accommodate bookings that we explicitly wrote to heavily imply child sexual exploitation and abuse.
- In total, 80% of the Accor Hotels that engaged with us accommodated our highly problematic requests. We find the statistics and content of our e-mail investigation highly concerning and choose to disclose all email chains in the Appendix.
- To put our results into perspective, we contacted Hotels that are not related to Accor in the same areas with the same outreach email. We found a meaningfully lower response rate and willingness to service our requests. Out of 56 non-Accor Hotels we contacted, only one seemed willing to service a problematic request.
- We consulted with human rights and legal experts to evaluate our research. The legal consequences of our investigation could be potentially devastating for Accor on multiple levels if the alleged facts are substantiated and evidence shows that criminal offenses were committed. We commissioned written legal analyses of our findings, two of which are copied in their entirety in the Appendix.
- Recently disclosed Epstein files state that Accor CEO Sébastien Bazin allegedly had personal ties with Epstein. The Epstein files reveal further links between Accor and Epstein we find concerning.
- Just months after Accor effectively acquired the hotel chain Rixos, the founder of Rixos apparently arranged private training at Rixos premises for two of Epstein’s private masseuses, after which Epstein cryptically wrote that this training had “changed their lives.”
- The “Deadman Switch” video that is speculated to be linked to deceased Hollywood actor Isaac Kappy and to indicate pedophilic crimes shows a group of prepubescent girls in bikinis at Rixos resort spa in Turkey, which appears to be the same one Epstein used for the training of his Russian personal masseuses.
- Epstein was reportedly informed directly about Accor’s readiness to settle a rape-related lawsuit. Journalists have further alleged that Accor exploited the scandal to trap Dominique Strauss-Kahn by transmitting the information straight to the Élysée, thereby derailing his French presidential ambitions and bringing his tenure at the International Monetary Fund to an end.
- We identify materials in the Epstein files linking Jeffrey Epstein or his associates to bookings, receipts, correspondence, or stays at multiple Accor branded properties across several countries.
- We present a collection of social media posts and local media reports describing alleged sexual offences at Accor hotels, including incidents that reportedly led to arrests or convictions.
- The apparent contrast between our investigation’s findings and Accor’s perceived leadership in preventing human trafficking and child exploitation makes us wonder: Is Accor’s human rights policy meant to appease investors or meant to protect the victims?
Read the full report here by Grizzly Research.
