Ghislaine Maxwell arrested at her £800k US hideaway after FBI tracked her mobile phone
GHISLAINE Maxwell was arrested at her £800,000 US hideaway after the FBI tracked her mobile phone, it emerged yesterday.
Agents discovered her secluded home in New Hampshire using data from a phone the British socialite had used to call her husband and relatives.
Court documents reveal Maxwell opened a mobile account under the name "G Max" and used it to communicate with her husband, tech CEO Scott Borgerson, her sister Isabel and lawyer Laura Menninger.
The heiress, 59, was arrested on July 2 last year in a raid on a mansion named "Tuckedaway" and charged with grooming girls for Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring.
Just one day before, on July 1, in an affidavit in support of an application for a search warrant, the FBI revealed how they wanted to track her down.
They had previously obtained a search warrant in New York to receive GPS and historical cell site data for Maxwell’s phone.
It had a northeastern Massachusetts area code – within one square mile of her location – but they did not know her exact address.
The affidavit states: “The FBI does not know Maxwell’s current location and accordingly requires the information sought in this application in order to locate and arrest Maxwell.”
The New Hampshire warrant allowed the FBI to “use an investigative device or devices capable of broadcasting signals that will be received by” Maxwell’s phone, the court document claims.
It indicates that the FBI used a "stingray" device, also known as an "IMSI catcher", to locate Maxwell, US website the Daily Beast reported.
The portable equipment, which can fit inside a briefcase, simulates a cell tower and forces phones in the immediate vicinity to connect to it instead of an actual tower.
Once it connects, the stingray pinpoints the phone’s exact location and the registered user’s identifying information.
The affidavit also indicates Maxwell shared a joint bank account with her husband Borgerson and that her Amazon account sent him “multiple packages within approximately the last year”.
According to the court documents, the last communication between Maxwell’s device and Borgerson’s phone was in March 2020 – four months before she was arrested.
Maxwell was denied bail for a second time in December and remains locked up in a New York jail ahead of her trial in July.
GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL [email protected]
Source: Read Full Article