Ghislaine Maxwell: How worldwide hunt for Jeffrey Epstein ‘pimp’ led to French chateau and superyacht in New Zealand
A WORLDWIDE hunt for Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘pimp’ Ghislaine Maxwell sparked rumours of her whereabouts from New Mexico to New Zealand.
The British socialite was finally arrested today, after vanishing from the public eye four years ago, over claims she trafficked dozens of underaged girls for the paedo tycoon.
Rumours of her location have included her hiding out in a French chateau, to sailing off on a superyacht in New Zealand.
Maxwell, 58, has been accused of involvement in Epstein’s alleged sexual crimes and was also the person who introduced Prince Andrew to the disgraced billionaire.
The alleged ‘pimp’ of the notorious sex abuser was arrested in Bedford, New Hampshire and is expected to appear in a federal court later today.
She was arrested close to the home of her alleged boyfriend Scott Borgerson, it is understood.
It was claimed that Epstein’s former girlfriend Maxwell, 58, was hiding out in a Paris apartment to avoid questioning in the US by the FBI over her links to the late disgraced billionaire.
The alleged hide-out spot was just a five-minute drive away from Epstein’s former £7 million apartment.
WORLDWIDE HUNT
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.
It was thought that she remained in Paris during the virus crisis and hoped to benefit from her status as a French citizen to avoid extradition.
After vanishing from public life in 2016, many questioned her whereabouts – with some guessing that she was at her former family home in Meyreuil, in the south of France.
Her former townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was sold for $15 million in 2016, by a company with the same address as Epstein’s New York office.
The worldwide hunt for Epstein’s former girlfriend gained more traction after he hung himself while awaiting trial last summer.
Maxwell was last seen in public outside of an ‘In N Out’ burger restaurant in Los Angeles, a week after the disgraced financier killed himself in August 2019.
The Sun even offered a £10,000 reward for information leading to us successfully making direct contact with her in person.
However, Jeffrey Epstein’s death wasn’t the only thing which sparked new interest in tracking down Ghislaine.
Since Netflix launched the documentary ‘Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich’ about the wealthy sex offender, theories have circulated about where Maxwell was hiding, and what her involvement was in his affairs.
This led many to believe that Maxwell was hiding out on Epstein’s ‘paedophile island,’ called Little St James.
Epstein bought Little St James more than two decades ago – transforming it into a high-security private oasis, complete with mansion and bizarre blue and white gold-domed structure.
It was dubbed “paedophile island” by locals after it emerged he had abused girls there with one victim even attempting to escape by swimming in shark-infested waters.
In June 2020, a superyacht previously named after the fugitive socialite was spotted in New Zealand after sailing from Australia, igniting rumours that Maxwell was on the other side of the world.
The 190ft vessel was formerly owned by crooked British media mogul Robert Maxwell, who named it Lady Ghislaine after his beloved daughter.
ARRESTED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
The yacht is now named The Dancing Hare and registered to a company named Touille, based in Vallauris, France.
In January this year, it sailed from Sydney to Dunedin, New Zealand.
It was also believed in 2019 that the alleged accomplice was laying low at a secluded oceanfront property in Manchester-by-the-Sea in Massachusetts.
The property, owned by her tech CEO boyfriend Borgerson was at the end of a long private road – and was off the radar.
Earlier this year, rumours also circulated that she may have been hiding out at Jeffrey Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico.
Her whereabouts was a mystery since Epstein’s death last August when he hung himself whilst awaiting trial for charges of child sex trafficking.
Epstein, a registered sex offender, was arrested last summer on new federal charges of exploiting dozens of underage girls in New York and Florida in the early 2000s.
The 66-year-old was accused of arranging for girls, some as young as 14, to perform nude ‘massages’ and other sex acts, and of paying some of the girls to recruit others.
He attempted suicide in custody in late July, and then died after another suicide attempt in early August.
Two of the guards tasked with monitoring Epstein now face federal charges for not properly supervising him before his death.
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One day before his suicide, a federal appeals court released the transcript of a 2016 deposition in which Epstein repeatedly refused to say whether Maxwell had procured young girls for him.
She has always denied any wrongdoing.
However today she was arrested in New Hampshire.