Investigators search Paris flat of sex offender Epstein

Paris: Investigators on Tuesday searched the Paris apartment of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, advancing the French leg of a probe into trafficking claims against the disgraced US financier, prosecutors said. They also searched the premises of Karin Models, an agency founded by Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel, in a child sex abuse investigation that has spilled over from the United States.

Epstein was found hanged in his New York jail cell on August 10 while awaiting trial.

Claims of abuse have since emerged across the Atlantic, and three women have already given evidence to investigators in France.

They included a former Dutch model who says she was drugged and raped by

Brunel, an ex-modelling scout, at a Paris apartment in the early 1990s. Brunel has been accused in US court documents of rape and of procuring young girls for Epstein — charges

he has denied.