DOWNFALL
ONCE a fixture at the trendiest parties, Ghislaine Maxwell became the socialite that no one could find.
Since Ghislaine's former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein was arrested last June on charges of sex trafficking, she had managed to pull off a ghostly disappearing act.
10
10
Hotshot lawyers working for a host of abused women couldn't find her, nor could the newshounds of Fleet Street.
Lady Victoria Hervey, Prince Andrew's ex and a friend of Maxwell, said in November: "Ghislaine is like a James Bond character. I don't believe anyone is going to find her."
Some wondered whether she was lying low in Russia - beyond the tentacles of the FBI.
Others suggested she might be using Israel, France, Brazil, Britain or the US as a bolthole.
The Sun even offered a £10,000 reward to anyone who could track her down.
10
Every time a reporter rapped on the door of a supposed hideaway she was gone or never there.
Ghislaine - accused of being at the centre of a spider's web of sexual depravity - seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
The last public sighting was said to have been in August when she was apparently snapped at LA fastfood joint In-N-Out Burger reading a book about CIA spies.
Dressed in a sloppy grey hoodie, she was pictured with a burger enjoying and fries, days after Epstein's suicide.
The burger joint seemed an odd choice for a British public school-educated socialite used to fine dining and rubbing shoulders with the super rich.
10
It was soon claimed that the pictures were photoshopped fakes and that the episode was a carefully-laid false trail.
It was claimed that adverts in the background did not match the time the photograph was said to have been taken at In-N-Out.
And the photos' digital infor known as metadata was said to contain the word Meadowgate, which is also the name of a company whose president Leah Saffian is a close friend of Ghislaine.
Iit was even claimed that a dog in one photo looked similar to a pet owned by Saffian.
Then there was a reported sighting of Maxwell in wealthy Manchesterby-the-Sea, in the north eastern US state of Massachusetts.
10
It was said she had been living with her then lover Scott Borgerson at his secluded £2.2million seafront home.
According to neighbours, Ghislaine went by the initial G rather than her distinctive first name, and would take her dog for walks along the beach.
One said he often saw her and Mr Borgerson out running but that she had not been seen in the area for at least a fortnight.
Later Scott said Maxwell was not at his home and described her as a "former friend".
10
Then rumours spread that Paris-born Maxwell was in France. Her sister Christine was said to live in the rural village of Meyreuil in Provence. But it was discovered Catherine had sold up in 2015.
Then in October, it was reported that she had been seen in Brazil with Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modelling agent accused of trafficking young girls for Epstein.
Sky News said that "information gathered by a former US police officer" showed that Brunel's phone had been traced to coastal resort Santa Catarina.
At the same time, Ghislaine's phone was alleged to also be connected to a network in Santa Catarina state.
But no trace was found of the pair by news teams.
The ninth and youngest child of media mogul and fraudster Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell, 58, was brought up in the 53-room Headington Hill Hall in Oxford.
A recent article in society magazine Tatler quoted a childhood friend saying of her: "Nice girl, and her father was a complete c***."
10
Maxwell died in mysterious circumstances cumstances in November 1991 when he fell to his death from his £15million yacht the Lady Ghislaine named after his daughter off the Canary Islands.
Young girls Soon afterwards a £460 million black hole was discovered in his companies' pension funds.
Rumours have since swirled that it may have been suicide or even murder at the hands of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Ghislaine received the best education money could buy, at Oxford's Headington School, Marlborough College in Wiltshire and then Balliol College, Oxford.
An acquaintance said of Ghislaine: "She had an upbringing and taste and knew how to run a house and a boat and how to entertain. You can't buy that. You can't buy access, either."
She moved to New York in 1991 when her father bought the New York Daily News and it is thought she first met billionaire financier Epstein shortly after Maxwell fell from his yacht in the same year.
10
It has been reported that Ghislaine was first Epstein's girlfriend before becoming his best friend.
She was soon using her charm and charisma to help him mix with royalty, politicos and Hollywood elite. It has also been alleged she was procuring young girls to feed his lusts and those of his friends.
"Sex slave" Virginia Roberts, now 35, says at 17 she was flown by private jet to London where she was ordered by Ghislaine to have sex with Prince Andrew at her Belgravia mews house. The Prince denies the allegations.
Ghislaine has always denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s sexual abuses.
Some believed Ghislaine could have been lying low with friends and family in Britain while investigations continued.
The £3.7million Belgravia house has been doorstepped by the world’s Press with no sign of Ghislaine.
Family members weren’t talking and rumours that she might be at a friend's flat in Oxford came to nothing.
10
The address of a Wiltshire cottage that was previously listed at UK Companies House proved simply to be a mailing address. There were suggestions that Ghislaine was in Israel, where her father had close business links. She spent time on a kibbutz there after leaving school and has a good network of contacts. But again, there were no confirmed sightings.
Another mooted hideaway was Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the US. John Mark Dougana US. Dougan, former sheriff's deputy who worked on a 2005 probe into Epstein's child sex crimes, fled there after he was caught up in a hacking inquiry.
He has kept his records of the Epstein investigation and no trace of Ghislaine was found there.
Spencer Kuvin, who represents three Epstein accusers, claimed the US authorities knew where she was.
He said: "Any time she travels, the federal government will know where she is because there are flight logs required for every type of travel. Even if you fly private, they're required to file a flight log with regard to passengers on board.
"I don't think it's a matter of where she is, I think it's a matter of if and when they decide to file charges and arrest her."
MOST READ IN NEWS
He added: "Even someone who is on the run or who might have concerns of prosecution, they're going to go where they feel safest.
"I think the two places she feels safest and most comfortable are the US and the UK."
It was hunch that would prove presciently correct.
10
Prosecutors say Ghislaine Maxwell was still living a life of luxury when she was arrested on charge of sexually abusing minors