Bogotá, Colombia – On February 10, the Grenoble Prosecutor’s Office launched a worldwide call for victims or witnesses of Jacques Leveugle, a teacher arrested in 2024 in France and accused of sexually assaulting at least 89 minors around the world since 1967.
During a press conference, French prosecutor Étienne Manteaux said that the sexual predator was reported in 2023 by one of his nephews, who discovered a USB drive containing written memoirs, pictures, and other documents related to the abuse of teenagers.
The French Embassy in Colombia called for witnesses to come forward to identify potential abuse victims in the country, as Leveugle worked as a teacher in Bogotá on two occasions between 1996 and 2023.
The suspect was living in Morocco when the investigation began, but had spent his life moving between Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Algeria, Nigeria, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Colombia, and France. In all of these countries, he allegedly targeted minors while working in educational or social roles.
Authorities revealed that in his “autobiography,” the alleged abuser gave horrendous details about 89 teenagers, between 13 and 17 years old, being manipulated and abused from 1967 to 2022.
“We need Jacques Leveugle’s name to be known because the objective is to reach the victims and encourage them to come forward,” Manteaux confirmed.
He said that 40 of the 89 victims had been identified and that authorities were working to find the rest.
“Sometimes names are not even mentioned; we are facing a wall in certain situations… This call for witnesses is to allow victims we haven’t been able to identify to come forward,” the prosecutor explained. “Perhaps not all victims are recorded in these documents.”
Manteaux also said that the man, who has been under arrest since 2024 and never officially graduated as an educator, also confessed in his writings to killing two women: his mother and one of his aunts.
The uphill battle to find victims in Colombia
Investigations revealed that Jacques Leveugle spent several years living in and visiting Colombia between 1996 and 2000, and again from 2000 to 2023.
In an interview with Caracol Radio, the prosecutor confirmed that the sexual predator worked as a French teacher in a shelter for children and teenagers in the capital city, Bogotá.
“It’s hard to reach victims outside France; that’s why we have made a special invitation to Colombian victims. We need them and their experiences to understand what this man really did,” he said during the call, adding that they decided to take a “traditional” approach due to the difficulty of reaching witnesses.
Authorities are also trying to determine if Leveugle had collaborators and what his “modus operandi” was to ensure that none of the teenagers ever complained or reported the abuse to the police.
Latin America Reports contacted the Grenoble Prosecutor’s Office, and they confirmed that the investigation remains active and ongoing in Colombia. They also committed to briefing the media on any significant breakthroughs as they continue to work toward identifying more victims internationally.
The French Embassy in Bogotá has shared the channels established to find Colombian victims:
Anyone with information or seeking to report an incident can communicate via email at sr-grenoble-leveugle@gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr or by calling the international hotline at +33 800 005 321.