Epstein used modelling agent to recruit girls, Brazilian women tell BBC

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Luiz Fernando ToledoBBC News Brasil

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BBC / Anselmo Cunha

Gláucia Fekete says modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who was friends with Epstein, offered to fly her to New York

Warning: This story contains graphic sexual descriptions.

“If I had disobeyed my mother and gone to New York, what might have happened to me?” asks Gláucia Fekete.

In 2004, as a 16-year-old living in the Brazilian countryside, she was taking her first steps in the modelling world.

She says French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel visited her family home, to persuade her mother to let her go to a modelling contest in Ecuador. He later killed himself in prison, accused of rape, sexual assault and recruiting girls for the late US financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Back then, they didn’t know who Brunel was; they had been introduced by a famous Brazilian scout.

A BBC News Brasil investigation has found evidence that Brunel used modelling agencies linked to him at the time to actively seek out young women and girls from South America for Epstein, and to arrange visas for them to travel to the US.

Another Brazilian woman, who says she had a relationship with Epstein, showed the BBC her US visa. It named one of Brunel’s agencies as her sponsor, even though she says she never did any modelling work for him and the travel documents were arranged solely so that she could visit Epstein.

US Department of Justice

Jean-Luc Brunel “was always hanging out with the young Brazilian girls”, a model told the BBC

Gláucia’s mother was suspicious of Brunel, but he seemed “very charming” and eventually she agreed her daughter could go to Ecuador without her. The teenager travelled with Brunel’s team to Guayaquil for the Models New Generation competition. At the time, local newspapers reported that the participants were between 15 and 19 years old.

Gláucia says the competition passed without any major problems, although she grew suspicious when she was not allowed to contact her family.

Another contestant, from Western Europe, who was 16 at the time, remembers how Brunel’s behaviour struck her as odd. She asked not to be named, so we are referring to her as Laura.

“It was weird how he behaved and was always hanging out with the young Brazilian girls… He was behaving like a clown and only hanging out with quite young girls,” she says.

Laura believes that while the competition was “legit” and well organised, “he knew exactly which girls were vulnerable”.

“He seemed to control their finances,” she says. “The girls from Brazil and East European countries seemed to be the prime target.”

Gláucia says that towards the end of the trip, Brunel offered to fly her to New York “to take part in shows” with all expenses paid. At that point they had to contact her mother, Barbara, for permission.

Fekete family archive /BBC / Anselmo Cunha

A picture from Gláucia’s modelling portfolio when she was a teenager

Barbara’s response: "No. Not a chance.

“They were only looking for children, minors,” Barbara says. “Unfortunately they found my daughter.”

She forbade Gláucia from any more involvement in modelling and cut ties with Brunel’s network.

“It really was a narrow escape,” says Gláucia.

In files released by the US government, BBC News Brasil found records showing that Epstein was in Guayaquil on 24 and 25 August 2004, at the same time as the final of the modelling competition. We also saw documents indicating that at least one model under 16 who attended the event flew on Epstein’s plane at least twice in the same year.

Gláucia says that looking back, “without knowing it, I was in the middle of that storm”.

“My mother saved me.”

Fekete family archive

Gláucia Fekete is grateful that her mother Barbara refused to let her go to New York with Brunel

‘He chose me’

Another Brazilian woman, whom we are calling Ana to protect her identity, says that Brunel and his modelling business were instrumental in facilitating her relationship with Epstein.

Ana was initially recruited by a Brazilian woman in the early 2000s in São Paulo.

Ana’s account, corroborated by documents reviewed by the BBC and cross-checked against US Department of Justice records, shows how Brunel helped to arrange US visas for Brazilians.

Ana says she left her hometown in southern Brazil after being promised modelling opportunities in São Paulo by a woman who was based there.

She says that on arrival, the woman took her documents and told her she now owed money for travel and photos. Ana says she soon realised there was no modelling work.

“She was a madam. Before I knew it, she was pimping me out.”

One of the clients was Jeffrey Epstein, says Ana.

She describes how, a few weeks after her 18th birthday, the woman took her to the home of a prominent businessman in São Paulo. There, she says, she heard him describe Epstein as “the king of the world” and say: “He likes younger girls.”

A few days later, she says she and two other women were sent to a luxury hotel in São Paulo, where Epstein would choose one of them. “He chose me,” she says.

US Department of Justice

Ana says that Brunel (right) arranged a US visa for her so that she could travel to be with Epstein (left)

Ana says she went to a room with Epstein, where he asked her to remove her clothes. “His thing was watching me while he touched himself. It was disgusting, but of all evils, the lesser one,” she says.

US Department of Justice files, including emails and flight records, place Epstein in Brazil at that time.

She says he invited her to a party in the city a few days later, which is where she first met Brunel, and the modelling agent soon became instrumental in arranging a US visa for her.

She adds that during the party, Epstein told her that he was going to Paris the next day and that he had already arranged for her to go with him.

The visa route

Describing the trip to France, she says: “He [Epstein] would give me $300 (£225). I would go out for a walk and give him the change, but he would tell me to keep the money. He would test me and leave money in my room, and then I would give it back to him, and he would say I could keep it.”

She says Epstein then told her that he had arranged for Brunel to hire her at his modelling agency in New York, and that the madam had handed over her documents.

Ana showed the BBC her passport, containing a US business visa with an annotation naming the agency that Brunel set up in the US, Karin Models of America.

Ana says she never worked for Karin Models of America but was told the paperwork would support her travel to the US, and the only reason for the visa was to visit Epstein.

AFP via Getty Images

Epstein took Ana to Paris where he had an apartment

Her statement matches other documents. Court records and US Department of Justice files indicate that Brunel used his agency, first called Karin Models of America, and later MC2 in America, to attract girls from several countries, including minors.

The same records include testimony from a former MC2 employee in the US saying Epstein paid for visas which Brunel’s agency in the US arranged. Epstein had provided financial backing when Brunel set up MC2 in the US.

There has never been any suggestion that any agency other than those managed and controlled by Brunel in the US were involved in any wrongdoing.

Before he died, Brunel denied he had done anything wrong. His lawyers said he had been “crushed” by the allegations, and blamed a “media-judicial system”.

Ana says that over the course of about four months, she travelled to the US and France with Epstein, who was “affectionate” towards her.

She describes how, during that time, he paid for some English lessons.

Ana says her visa was cancelled in Miami after US authorities questioned who was paying for her work and whether she was receiving money in the United States.

She says she had travelled to the country at least six times to spend time with Epstein before the visa was cancelled.

She says she went to his private island in the US Virgin Islands and thought he considered her his girlfriend, until she found him in bed with someone else. “Until then, it hadn’t sunk in that he did this with many girls,” she says.

“On several occasions he would tell me to leave the house to do something - go to a museum, go to classes. I don’t know if anything happened that he didn’t want me to see… He liked younger girls and being surrounded by them.”

She adds that she had sex with him once, and “he liked sleeping, spooning, cuddling and having his feet massaged”.

US Department of Justice

Epstein (left) provided financial backing when Brunel (right) established the MC2 modelling agency in the US

She says Epstein once told her that Brunel had asked to sleep with her but he refused saying: “I didn’t let him because you’re mine.”

Ana says she didn’t know whether to feel “grateful or more terrified” and after that, she felt Brunel was “like a wolf looking at a lamb, always with devouring eyes, both for other girls and me”.

Ana says that for the first meeting at the hotel and the trip to Paris, there was an agreement that Epstein would pay the Brazilian madam $10,000 (£7,400) in cash.

She says Epstein paid only part of that amount and that she overheard phone calls in which the woman pressured him to pay the remainder.

This account is consistent with testimony given in 2010 to a court in Florida by a former accountant at MC2 in the US - Brunel’s model agency - and cited in the Epstein files. The accountant said there was a Brazilian woman who arranged girls for Epstein and Brunel in Brazil and was angry over a debt.

According to Ana, contact with the Brazilian woman who recruited her faded after she released her documents, but Ana continued to see Epstein.

Ana says that after the visa was cancelled, Epstein offered to get her a green card to live in the US but she declined so she could stay close to her family in Brazil.

Investigation into recruitment network

Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) opened an investigation in February into whether there was a recruitment network in Brazil linked to Epstein.

Federal prosecutor Cinthia Gabriela Borges from the national anti-trafficking unit told the BBC that she wanted to speak to women who had contact with Epstein to work out how the system operated. The women themselves are not the target of the inquiry.

What happened to Ana and others could be considered human trafficking for sexual exploitation, according to labour inspector and researcher Maurício Krepsky. He says that this type of crime may not be subject to a statute of limitations, so Brazilians involved could still be held accountable.

Gláucia is grateful that she had a mother who said no. And after years of trying to make sense of what happened to her, Ana feels fortunate to have left Epstein’s circle and rebuilt her life.

“I think I was lucky, but I feel for the other women,” she says.

If you, or someone you know, have been affected by the issues raised in this story, details of organisations offering information and support are available at BBC ActionLine.

Sexual violence

Jeffrey Epstein

Brazil

United States