[9] Brunel, as a talent scout, discovered a number of models who rose to prominence, including Christy Turlington and Sharon Stone.

[14] After Brunel was included in a BBC One MacIntyre Undercover report on abuse within the fashion industry in November 1999, he was banned from his modeling agency in Europe.

[15] The Daily Beast reported that he relied on funding from his brother Arnaud and their business partner, Étienne des Roys.

[9] In 2003, both financiers pulled out and after the "Paris office filed to revoke Brunel's claim to the Karin trademark in 2004", he changed the name of the agency to MC2.

[16] Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an Epstein accuser, alleged in a 2014 court filing that the system was a cover for sex trafficking.

[4] In court documents released in August 2019, Giuffre named Brunel as one of the men Maxwell had directed her as a teenager to have sex with.

[3] Brunel was the subject of a seven-month investigation by CBS producer Craig Pyes and reporter Diane Sawyer for 60 Minutes.

[19] Michael Gross reported in Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women that Brunel had admitted to using cocaine for years.

[19] In 2002, Brunel was again associated with abuse after Elite supermodel Karen Mulder described to the French press the culture of sexual misconduct and manipulation prevalent in the modeling industry.

[22][23] Giuffre alleges that she was sexually trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to several high-profile individuals, including Brunel, while she was underage in the early 2000s.

[5] In September 2019, his Paris home and offices were searched by French investigators as part of a probe into sex trafficking by Epstein.

[26] On 16 December 2020, Brunel was intercepted by police at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, as he was about to board a flight to Dakar, Senegal.

He was then placed under garde à vue custody for questioning in relation to rape, sexual assault, criminal conspiracy, and human trafficking, with all of the allegations involving minors.