Ghislaine Maxwell and other Britons linked to Jeffrey Epstein investigated by the FBI
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The FBI is investigating British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and several other people linked to U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation, according to an exclusive story by Reuters.
They said a principal focus of the FBI’s investigation is Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, and other “people who facilitated” Epstein’s allegedly illegal behavior.
Maxwell has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Her lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
The FBI also is following up on many leads received from women who contacted a hotline the agency set up at its New York field office in the wake of Epstein’s arrest in July, the sources said.
One of the sources said the probe remains at an early stage.
The sources declined to give further details or identify the people they are looking at apart from Maxwell. However, they said the FBI has no current plans to interview Britain’s Prince Andrew, a friend of Epstein’s who stepped down from his public duties in November because of what he called his “ill-judged” association with the well-connected money manager.
A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment.
A representative for the British royal family said that whether the agency interviewed Andrew was “a matter for the FBI.”
Maxwell has been accused in court filings of facilitating a sex-trafficking operation that brought girls to Epstein’s opulent Manhattan home, but she has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Her lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
Maxwell, 58, was an ex-girlfriend of Epstein’s who became a longtime member of his inner circle. In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Epstein was quoted as saying Maxwell was his “best friend.”
She is the daughter of late British media magnate Robert Maxwell, who founded a publishing house and owned tabloids including the Daily Mirror. It emerged after Robert Maxwell’s mysterious death in 1991 that he had looted hundreds of millions of dollars from employee pension funds to prop up his crumbling business empire.
In the early 1990s, Ghislaine Maxwell moved to New York, where she worked selling real estate. Around that time she began her romantic relationship with Epstein, a financier who lived in a lavish style and attended high society parties.
Some of Epstein’s alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his circle, where they were sexually abused by him and powerful friends. In 2013 and 2014, Maxwell spoke at the United Nations in her capacity as the founder of the TerraMar Project, an oceanic conservation group.
Maxwell largely disappeared from public view in 2016 and has been particularly elusive since Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in July.
The Washington Post reported in August that neighbors said Maxwell had been living in a secluded oceanfront mansion in Massachusetts owned by a technology entrepreneur, Scott Borgerson, who declined to tell the newspaper whether Maxwell had lived there with him.
A British tabloid, The Sun, said in November that it was offering a 10,000 pounds reward for information on Maxwell’s whereabouts.
