In this 2019 file photo, a man walks his dog next to an apartment building owned by Jeffrey Epstein in Paris. | Photo credit: AP
Paris prosecutors on Wednesday (Feb 18, 2026) opened two new investigations into sex abuse crimes and financial wrongdoing linked to Jeffrey Epstein after releasing millions of files on the millionaire financier and convicted sex offender and calling for victims to come forward.
Paris prosecutor Laurence Becua said the investigation was seeking to use files released by the US administration, media reports and new complaints being filed.
“All that data … sheds light on others to be able to get some good information, a much broader, broader picture,” Ms. Beccuau said. France information Newscaster.
One probe will focus on sexual assault offences, the other on financial wrongdoing, each with separate magistrates, she added.
The move comes after the US Justice Department released more than three million pages of documents, as well as thousands of videos and photos, related to Epstein, who died behind bars in 2019.
“These publications inevitably reactivate the trauma of some victims,” she said. “We believe that some [victims] We don’t need to know them and perhaps these publications will bring them forward.
She called on victims who had never spoken before to file official complaints or produce witness accounts to provide French and foreign investigations.
Ms. Beccuau also said that some of the old research had to be re-examined in the light of new revelations.
She was referring to the trial of French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who is accused of raping and sex-trafficking minors.
The trial ended when he was found dead in his prison cell in Paris in 2022. Brunel, a frequent associate of Epstein’s, was considered the focus of a French investigation into alleged sexual exploitation of women and girls by Epstein and his circle.
Epstein traveled frequently to France and had apartments in Paris.
In France, the highest-profile figure affected by the recently released Epstein files in France is former culture minister Jack Long, 86, who resigned earlier this month as head of the Arab World Institute in Paris over suspicions of tax fraud.
The Office of Financial Prosecutors has opened an investigation into Long and his daughter Carolyn Long’s alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein through an offshore company based in the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea.
Published – February 18, 2026 04:57 pm IST
