Section 01
The Two Inquiries
February 18, 2026. Paris Public Prosecutor Laure Beccuau opened two new lines of inquiry arising from the released files:
- One into alleged human trafficking
- One into possible financial wrongdoing
The structure. Five magistrates were appointed to act as, in the words of an official at the prosecutor's office, "entry points for the various complaints, reports, and any other information that is communicated to us, so that we can pool them and ensure that no information is missed."
A dedicated investigation team was established in February 2026 to analyse the EFTA documents for French connections, examining both historical and newly surfaced evidence.
The scale of the task. The same official described law enforcement specialists undertaking the "titanic task" of reviewing the files.
The financial track. The financial inquiry involves the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), which had already opened a separate investigation into former Culture Minister Jack Lang earlier in February.
Why France's approach differs. Norway prosecuted individuals for what they received. Britain arrested one man over what he allegedly gave. France opened a structural inquiry into the operation itself — and asked victims to come forward.
Across the entire European response, France's is the only criminal investigation whose subject is trafficking.
Everywhere else, prosecutors have pursued the financial and corruption offences that survive a defendant's death and do not require victim testimony. France is attempting the harder case.
That is also why the call for survivors to come forward matters: without complainants, a trafficking case built solely on documents is extremely difficult.
France had investigated before. Brunel was charged in 2020 with rape of minors and criminal conspiracy following a French investigation opened in 2019.
He died in custody in February 2022 before trial — the second principal in this case to die before a jury heard the evidence.
Section 02
22 Avenue Foch
This section documents the property, its use, and its evidentiary status. It contains no description of abuse. Photographs referenced here were released by French investigators and reported by Le Parisien; this site describes their investigative significance, not their contents beyond what is necessary to establish it.
The address. 22 Avenue Foch, in the 16th arrondissement, at the Arc de Triomphe end of one of the most expensive streets in Paris. 685 square metres — about 7,400 square feet — across 18 rooms. Reported values range from $10.4 million at sale to $14 million.
How often he was there. French authorities allege Epstein visited the apartment more than 170 times, and that he used it as his base for an international sex trafficking ring of minors.
Their allegation is that he raped and sexually assaulted victims at the property.
This is not a secondary residence in the record. Little St. James is the location the world associates with the case. Avenue Foch is where the European operation physically ran — the destination for the Kyiv flights, the placement point for the modelling pipeline, and the apartment a mile from Karin Models' headquarters.
The 2019 searches. The Paris prosecutor opened a criminal inquiry in August 2019, weeks after Epstein's arrest. Investigators searched the apartment through the night in September, from Monday afternoon into the early hours of Tuesday.
A week earlier they had searched the nearby headquarters of Karin Models, the agency Jean-Luc Brunel founded in 1978.
Three women came forward to that 2019 investigation, including a former Dutch model.
The photographs. In February 2026, photographs taken by investigators in 2019 — extracted from the case file of Jean-Luc Brunel, and previously unpublished — were obtained by Le Parisien.
They document an interior decorated with images of young women, taxidermied animals including an elephant calf and a vulture, and a room fitted with a massage table. One photograph shows Epstein with two young women.
Why the photographs matter legally. They were taken by French police, in France, in 2019 — and they sat in a dead man's case file for seven years. They are now being used alongside the DOJ files in the reopened inquiry.
Two British figures are documented at the Paris apartment, and both were arrested in London in February 2026 on suspicion of misconduct in public office:
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor — reported to have visited regularly and stayed at the apartment.
Peter Mandelson — a photograph released in the files shows him in his underwear with an unnamed young woman in the same flat.
Both were released without charge. Both vehemently deny any wrongdoing.
The United Kingdom file →
Epstein spent his final two weeks as a free man at Avenue Foch. Bloomberg's reconstruction of his appointments for late June and early July 2019 describes:
— Lunches with European diplomats and Middle Eastern power brokers
— Visits to architects and interior designers, followed by more than $55,000 spent at home furnishing boutiques
— Meetings with a leading proponent of intelligent design, and a world-renowned geometrician
— A dinner with Terje Rød-Larsen, the Norwegian diplomat now charged
On July 6, 2019, federal agents arrested him aboard his private jet moments after it landed in New Jersey — on the return leg from Paris.
Section 03
Jean-Luc Brunel
The central French figure. A modelling agent who ran Karin Models and later MC2 Model Management, the latter partly financed by Epstein.
The structure he operated. The "mother agency" system moves young women across borders on the promise of work in Paris, Milan or New York. The local agency handles documentation, travel and housing, taking a percentage of earnings. It is legal, ubiquitous, and almost entirely unregulated — every element of a trafficking control structure, operating openly as a legitimate business.
The Ukraine operations. Brunel opened the Ukrainian branch of Karin Models and visited Kyiv one to two times a year to scout — confirmed by the head of Linea 12 Models, who knew him for twenty years. Linea 12 Models and L-Models are named in released DOJ files. In 2019 he sold MC2 assets to help create 1Mother Agency in Kyiv.
What the civil complaints describe. "Girls from South America, Europe, and the former Soviet republics, few of whom spoke English."
His death. Charged in France with rape of minors and criminal conspiracy, he was found dead in his Paris jail cell in February 2022, before trial.
The reopening. French authorities reopened his case in 2026 following the EFTA disclosures.
The 2004 flight. Brunel appears on the documented February 12, 2004 flight from JFK to Le Bourget alongside Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Nina Keita — the niece of Côte d'Ivoire's president.
Paris was not incidental to the operation. It was the routing point.
The Le Bourget flight is the clearest single illustration: Epstein, Maxwell, Brunel and a West African president's niece on the same aircraft into Paris in 2004.
Four different functions of the network — the principal, the recruiter of social access, the operator of the modelling pipeline, and a political intermediary — travelling together.
The full trafficking pipeline report →
Section 04
Jack Lang
Who he is. One of the most prominent figures in modern French cultural politics. Culture Minister under François Mitterrand, later Education Minister, and until February 2026 president of the Arab World Institute in Paris. He is 86.
The investigation. The National Financial Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation into suspected "laundering of the proceeds of tax evasion."
What triggered it. Reporting by the French investigative outlet Mediapart concerning a company reportedly set up jointly by Epstein and Lang's daughter in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The raid. On February 16, 2026, French police searched the headquarters of the Arab World Institute, the prestigious Paris research institute Lang led.
He resigned as its president shortly afterwards. A separate tax investigation has been opened into his financial dealings with Epstein.
His daughter. The preliminary probe covers both Jack Lang and his daughter Caroline on suspicion of tax fraud.
Their response. Both have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or receiving financial benefits from Epstein. Their lawyer, Laurent Merlet, told BFMTV that "there was no movement of funds." Lang said in a February 7 statement that he welcomed the investigation with "serenity and even relief" and hoped it would "allow us to shed full light on accusations concerning attacks on my integrity and honor."
Why the USVI detail matters. The U.S. Virgin Islands is where Epstein's only two revenue-generating companies were registered, where Southern Trust Company sat, where he claimed tax incentives worth up to $300 million, and where the DEA alleged illicit wire transfers were occurring.
A French former minister's family reportedly holding a joint corporate structure with Epstein in that specific jurisdiction is what turned a reputational story into a financial crime investigation.
From the Europe hub — cross-border corporate opacity.
A French public figure's financial interests held through an entity in a Caribbean US territory is invisible to French disclosure regimes until a journalist finds it.
The Lang investigation exists because Mediapart looked, not because any oversight mechanism flagged it.
The Money Gap — the USVI structure →
Under formal investigation by the PNF for suspected laundering of the proceeds of tax evasion. Separate tax investigation opened. Institute headquarters searched. Resigned as president.
He has not been charged and denies the accusations.
Section 05
Aidan and Siad
Fabrice Aidan. A senior French diplomat under investigation on the specific suspicion that he transferred United Nations documents to Epstein.
He denies the allegation.
Why this matters. It is the same offence category as the British cases — not a benefit received, but state or institutional information passed to a private individual. Andrew is under investigation over confidential trade reports; Mandelson over government information; Aidan over UN documents.
Three separate jurisdictions, three officials, the same alleged conduct. He has not been charged.
Daniel Siad. The figure described in the files themselves as "a recruiter of girls and/or women for J. Epstein."
Chat logs show him sending Epstein photographs of women from cities worldwide for review. In a March 28, 2014 email (EFTA01196801) he described scouting Cape Town and planning a month-long return: "the potential of girls is huge and great people." He referenced a "mother agency" placement pipeline to Paris and New York.
Why his inclusion in the French inquiry matters. Siad is the only person under investigation in Europe whose alleged role in the files is direct recruitment rather than corruption, finance, or association.
The Paris pipeline he referenced is the same one Brunel operated. France is now investigating both ends of it.
The Paris investigation is structurally the most ambitious in Europe because it targets the operation rather than its beneficiaries:
— Brunel's agencies and their Kyiv and São Paulo branches
— The scouts who fed them, including Siad
— The financial structures that funded them
— The French officials whose proximity provided cover
If any European jurisdiction produces a trafficking conviction arising from the files, it will be this one.
Section 06
The Call to Survivors
The most significant thing France did was not an arrest. It was an invitation.
When Beccuau opened the two inquiries, the prosecutor's office stated the hope that some victims "may come forward even though they had not done so in previous years."
Why that framing matters. It acknowledges the obvious: that people who did not report in 2008, or 2015, or 2019 had reasons — and that a new institutional posture might change the calculation.
The five-magistrate structure exists specifically to receive that material: entry points for complaints and reports, pooled so that "no information is missed."
The contrast with the release itself. The January 2026 disclosure exposed nearly 100 survivors' personal information and photographs, prompting eighteen survivors to call it a betrayal.
Three weeks later, a French prosecutor built a structure designed to receive survivors safely and asked them to use it.
If you are a survivor considering coming forward, there is no obligation to be public in order to be believed or to seek recovery.
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline — 1-800-656-4673 · rainn.org
National Human Trafficking Hotline — 1-888-373-7888
The Survivors report →
Section 07
Open Questions
Section 08
Sources
Paris and London Open New Probes
Feb 18, 2026. Beccuau's two inquiries, the five magistrates, the "titanic task," and the PNF investigation into Lang.
nbcnews.com →The Call for Survivors to Come Forward
The prosecutor's office on hoping victims "may come forward even though they had not done so in previous years," and the Mediapart reporting on the USVI company.
via AOL →Prosecutors Open Investigation into Lang and Aidan
Feb 17, 2026. The Paris investigation into connections between Epstein and prominent French figures.
theglobeandmail.com →International Investigations Tracker
The Feb 16 Arab World Institute raid, the tax investigation, the Aidan and Siad inclusions, and the Brunel case reopening.
epsteinexposed.com →Inside the Paris Apartment
Feb 2026. The previously unpublished investigator photographs extracted from the Brunel case file, and the 18-room apartment on Avenue Foch.
lbc.co.uk →France Opens Trafficking and Tax Fraud Probes
Feb 2026. Five prosecutors, the Jack and Caroline Lang tax probe, and the allegation that Fabrice Aidan transferred UN documents to Epstein.
Reuters via AOL →The Trafficking Operation in Flight Logs
The 685 m² Avenue Foch property, the London flats and the rail route, and Epstein's last fortnight in Paris.
bloomberg.com →Investigators Search the Paris Flat
Sept 2019. The overnight search of Avenue Foch, the Karin Models raid a week earlier, and the three women who came forward.
AFP via Gulf News →Visual Guide to the Files
The 22 Avenue Foch sale for $10.4M, and the ~$180M total real estate portfolio at death.
aljazeera.com →Modeling & Trafficking
The full MC2 and Karin Models pipeline, the six-step playbook, and Brunel's Ukraine operations.
Read the report →The Survivors
The January 2026 release, the eighteen survivors' statement, and the compensation record.
Read the report →