A modelling agent who was close to the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein has been taken into custody in France on suspicion of an array of crimes including the rape of minors and trafficking minors for sexual exploitation.

The Paris prosecutors’ office said Jean-Luc Brunel was detained for questioning on Wednesday. Police picked him up at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, the office said, without specifying whether he was arriving or departing.

Brunel was being investigated as part of a broad French inquiry into alleged sexual exploitation of women and girls by Epstein and his circle. Multiple women have identified themselves as victims and spoken to police since the inquiry was opened in August last year.

Brunel was considered central to the inquiry because he was a frequent companion of Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Epstein travelled often to France and had apartments in Paris.

Brunel’s lawyer has previously said he contested accusations made against him in the media but he was available to talk to judicial officials.

WOW.

If he lived in Britain, he'd have nothing to fear. Thank God the French are a little tougher.