Ghislaine Maxwell hiding out in Paris
Fugitive socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been hiding out in
a sprawling Paris apartment close to Jeffrey Epstein's £7 million (AU$12.65m)
paedo pad, it has been revealed.
Maxwell, one of the world's most wanted women, fled to
France, where she was born, to avoid questioning in the US by the FBI over her
links to the late disgraced billionaire.
The 58-year-old, who vanished from public life in 2016,
moved into her secret bolthole on Avenue Matignon, in Paris's exclusive 8th
Arrondissement, to remain undetected, The Sun has reported.
The luxurious property is linked to a millionaire business
contact based in Normandy who offered to let her use it while the global hunt
for her continued.
And it is only a five-minute drive along the Champs-Elysees
to Epstein's vast apartment on Avenue Foch, which was raided by French cops
last September.
Maxwell, who is a long-term friend of the Duke of York, was
spotted on Avenue Matignon in the days before France announced its COVID-19
lockdown in March.
She remained in Paris during the virus crisis and hopes to
benefit from her status as a French citizen to avoid extradition, should she
face any criminal charges in the US.
A source said: "Ghislaine is moving locations every
month to keep private investigators off her tail and is staying at the
residences of trusted colleagues and contacts.
'DIDN'T WANT TO BE RECOGNISED'
"She wants to remain in France for as long as she can
to take advantage of extradition laws and has a huge network of contacts
willing to keep her hidden.
"Under French law anyone born on French soil is safe
from extradition to another country, regardless of the alleged crime.
"It doesn't mean she won't be prosecuted for her links
to Epstein but if she does end up facing charges it will be in France and not
the US."
Maxwell, who is accused of procuring underage girls for
Epstein, emerged from her bolthole on a number of occasions, each time with a
scarf wrapped tightly around her face to conceal her identity.
She strolled past sprawling Avenue Matignon's up-market art
galleries and top-end restaurants and cafes, which include posh Market, Le
Berkeley and Le Bristol.
One local said: "She was here just before France
announced its coronavirus lockdown.
"She rarely went out, but when she did she wore a large
patterned blanket which she pulled tightly around her face and draped across
her shoulders.
"She clearly didn't want to be recognised and was able
to blend in.
"But she was wearing her distinctive gold sovereign
ring on her left hand and a larger, glitzier ring on her right."
Others claim to have seen her walking away from the Israeli
Embassy, a fortified glass building guarded 24 hours a day by armed gendarmes
at checkpoints at either end of the street, with undercover Mossad agents
patrolling regularly.
Maxwell's closeness to the embassy is likely to fuel
conspiracy theories about who is protecting her.
It has been claimed she was a foreign intelligence asset
working for Israel, where her late father, the disgraced media mogul Robert
Maxwell, is buried.
She spent time on a kibbutz there after leaving school, has
a good network of contacts and is rumoured to have been offered safe haven
there.
Her exact whereabouts remain a mystery but she is said to be
determined to stay in Paris.
She first vanished when prosecutors began re-examining
hundreds of criminal complaints against her former boyfriend Epstein in the
autumn of 2016.
The Sun has offered a £10,000 ($A18,000) reward to anyone
who can provide information which directly results with successfully making
contact with her in person.
The last public sighting was said to have been last August,
when she was apparently photographed at Los Angeles fast food joint In-N-Out
Burger, reading a book about CIA spies.
But the pictures - taken just days after Epstein committed
suicide in jail - were later exposed as Photoshopped fakes.
Their metadata, or embedded digital information, was said to
bear the word Meadowgate, which is also the name of a company whose president,
Leah Saffian, is a close friend of Maxwell's.
The search then switched to America's East Coast, with a
reported sighting of her in affluent Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.
It was said she had been living with her then lover, Scott
Borgerson, at his secluded £2.2 million ($A3.97 million) seafront home,
situated on a private road.
According to neighbours, Maxwell went by the initial G
rather than her distinctive first name, and would take her dog for walks along
the beach.
Mr Borgerson later insisted Maxwell was not at his home,
describing her as a "former friend".
The trail also went cold in the south of France where her
sister Christine owned a sprawling mansion in the pretty Provence town of
Meyreuil.
'SEX SLAVE'
The property was sold two years ago and the new owners - and
neighbours - have not seen the Maxwell sisters since.
Not even Maxwell's own lawyers know her exact location.
She communicates with them only via email.
Lawyers for Epstein's victims hired private investigators to
try to find her and have issued writs at a number of addresses worldwide,
without success.
The FBI also wants to quiz Maxwell over her links to
Epstein, whose crimes have been detailed in Netflix documentary Filthy Rich.
It is claimed she also introduced Prince Andrew to US
"sex slave" Virginia Roberts, now known as Virginia Giuffre.
Giuffre has accused Maxwell of recruiting her to work as
Epstein's masseuse when she was 15.
She claims Maxwell directed her to give erotic massages and
engage in sexual activities with Prince Andrew and others, and says she had sex
with the royal "three times, including one orgy".
The first encounter allegedly took place in Maxwell's London
home when Virginia was 17.
In April, Epstein accuser Maria Farmer, now 50, filed a
sworn affidavit alleging she and her 15-year-old sister were sexually abused
by Epstein and Maxwell in 1996.
She claimed Maxwell acted as a "madam", driving
around New York plucking young women off the streets, supposedly to become
models, only to take them to be abused by Epstein and his pals.
The FBI raided Epstein's £60 million ($A108 million) New
York mansion and arrested him on July 6 last year, then on August 10 he was
found hanged in his cell in an apparent suicide while awaiting trial on
sex-trafficking charges.
LATEST HIDEAWAY
Epstein's Paris pad was raided just days later and the
city's chief prosecutor announced he was opening a probe after US investigators
identified links to France.
The offices of modelling agency Karin Models, which is owned
by Epstein's former pal Jean-Luc Brunel and is near Maxwell's latest hideaway,
were also searched.
Then in November Prince Andrew stepped down as a senior
royal after a disastrous Newsnight interview which questioned his relationship
with Epstein.
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