[imagesource: Mega Images]

74-year-old Jean-Luc Brunel, pictured above sharing a laugh with Ghislaine Maxwell in happier times, was arrested by police at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport on Wednesday.

French officials say he was attempting to flee to Dakar, Senegal, with Brunel having dropped off the radar in the same month that Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in New York on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.

Brunel was last seen at the upmarket Paris Country Club in July 2019, and he has good reason to fear the authorities.

The Telegraph reports:

The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that Brunel, who founded the MC2 model agency, was detained as part of an investigation into “rapes, sexual assaults, and association with criminals and the trafficking and exploitation of minors.”

Image: Ale De Basseville

…Brunel, who is credited with discovering a number of models who became internationally famous, including Christy Turlington and Sharon Stone, is accused of using his contacts in the fashion industry to provide women to Epstein, and on one occasion to Prince Andrew, according to 2015 court documents unsealed in June.

Brunel and Maxwell first met in the 1980s, and it was her that introduced him to Epstein.

Perhaps most damningly, flight logs from Epstein’s private jet show that between 1998 and 2005, there are 25 entries under the name  “Jean Luc Brunel,” a “Jean Luke,” or “JLB”.

This suggests that Brunel travelled repeatedly to many of Epstein’s homes, including his U.S. Virgin Islands home, which was dubbed ‘Paedophile Island’ by locals.

Pictures emerged earlier this year of Brunel and Maxwell laughing and playing around on Epstein’s private Caribbean island [below].

Brunel also visited Epstein close to 70 times when the billionaire was jailed in Florida for 18 months for procuring an underage girl for prostitution…

Maritza Vasquez, Brunel’s former bookkeeper, said in a sworn statement filed in court that Brunel would bring girls as young as 14 to Epstein’s parties and that Epstein paid for foreign visas and housed Brunel’s models rent-free in New York City.

A former Dutch model, Thysia Huisman, who has accused Brunel of drugging and raping her when she was 18, said his arrest was “great news,” adding that she had shed tears of joy.

Given that France does not extradite its citizens, it’s unclear whether Brunel’s arrest will affect the ongoing trial of Maxwell.

Still, I would think that her sleepless nights won’t be made any easier by the news coming out of France.

[source:telegraph]