Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly has secret sex tapes in her possession that would expose powerful Epstein acquaintances, giving her clout in any potential plea deal while also acting as a form of protection against being 'suicided'.

That's according to an unnamed former friend of Maxwell's, who told the Daily Mail, "If Ghislaine goes down, she's going to take the whole damn lot of them with her."

"The secret stash of sex tapes I believe Ghislaine has squirreled away could end up being her get-out-of-jail card if the authorities are willing to trade," said the insider. "She has copies of everything Epstein had. They could implicate some twisted movers and shakers."

It's now part of Jeffrey Epstein lore that the billionaire sex trafficker had his mansions festooned with cameras that recorded his influential friends having sex with underage girls, material that could later be used to blackmail them.

The compromat operation was widely speculated to be an intelligence program, possibly run by Mossad, for whom Epstein was reportedly recruited by Ghislaine's late father Robert Maxwell.

When authorities raided Epstein's New York home last year, they found a "vast trove" of pornographic photographs and digital video files of underage girls with handwritten descriptions such as "Young [Name] + [Name]", "Misc nudes 1", and "Girl pics nude". The files were believed to include the names of the abusers who had sex with the girls.