Jacques Leveugle

Jacques Leveugle (born 1946) is a retired French teacher, pedophile and sexual predator.^[1] He had also admitted to killing his terminally ill mother and aunt as acts of mercy.^[2] During his career as a foreign-language teacher and sports instructor in Europe, Asia and North Africa, evidence indicates that he had sexual relations with 89 boys aged between 13 and 17, spanning five decades.^[3][4] His sex crimes were discovered and revealed by his nephew from his computer (USB) files in 2022. After a year of criminal investigation he had been held in police custody since 2024.^[5]

In February 2026, the French government (National Gendarmerie) issued an international appeal to victims or witnesses to the crimes of Leveugle to report themselves for support in the legal proceedings.^[6][7] A separate homicide investigation was also launched simultaneously.^[8]

Leveugle was born in Annecy at the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France.^[9] He various worked as French tutor (informal teacher), sports instructor (such as in holiday camps) and study of caves during his entire profession.^[2][10][8] He does not have formal qualifications as school teacher or sports instructor.^[11][3]

Between 1965 and 1969 Leveugle worked at various places in France, Germany and Switzerland; between 1969 and 1975, he worked in Algeria and France; for the next five years, he move to Algeria, France, Morocco and Switzerland; between 1980 and 1985, he lived in New Caledonia and Colombia; from 1986 to 1996, he worked in France, Germany, Morocco and Switzerland; and between 1996 and 2023, he worked in Colombia, France and Morocco.^[6][12] He had been recognised as a "beloved teacher", a "respectable man"^[13] or "a devoted and very good teacher" by his students.^[14]

Leveugle first visited Morocco in 1955 and had since developed a liking of the country. At the time his father worked at the French embassy in Ribat. He spent much of his childhood and completed his elementary education there.^[13] Even after returning to France, he continuously visited or sporadically worked there since 1974 till his retirement.^[15] He settled there for a retired life, taking a home at Khenifra, working for the community. Known to the Moroccans as the "thin French man", he devoted his time to giving free language lessons, helping the poor and job seekers, organising field trips for students and running a children's library until his arrest in 2024.^[13]

In addition to French, Leveugle speaks fluent Arabic and Morocco's dialect including Shilha, a Berber language popularly used in Khenifra.^[13]

In October 2023, Leveugle's nephew (brother's son) who had been suspicious of his uncle's behaviour discovered a USB drive in which his uncle had carefully recorded his sexual exploitations.^[2] It was while Leveugle was away in a hiking trip. The electronic memoir contains "15 tomes of very dense material", as the prosecutor reported, revealing relationship with at least 89 individuals all aged between 13 and 17 with whom Leveugle has sexual activities. The nephew gave the information and the digital files to the law enforcement, National Gendarmie of Vizille.^[14] The police traced that the time period spanned his entire career from 1967 to 2022 and covered all countries where he worked.^[5][7]

In February 2024, Leveugle was arrested and was held in custody in Grenoble.^[16] At the time, he travelled from Morocco to visit his brother in the Isère department near Grenoble, where French police made the arrest.^[2] In April 2025, he was put to pretrial detention until the final prosecution.^[15] He had make a residence in Khenifra since the early 2000's. Although no criminal acts were observed, his neighbours recounted unusual behaviours such as spending times with young boys of around 13 to 15 years of age. In one instance, he guided school children to Agelmam Agezga lake where he asked all the students to swim naked, saying that it was a healthy practice.^[17] In his memoir, he wrote that homosexuality with an adult repulsed him.^[14]

Upon his arrest, Leveugle was charged with aggravated rape and sexual assault of minors. He was charged with sexual abuse of 10 boys in Morocco (could be more than a dozen^[17]) and two in Algeria.^[15]

The USB memoir also contains Leveugle's own records of two murders without specifying.^[3] It was under custody that Leveugle admitted to committing the homocides, one his mother and another, his aunt. His mother had been terminally ill due to cancer and suffocated her to death using a pillow in 1974. he explained that he wanted to end his mother's suffering.^[14] He killed hi 92-year-old aunt was in her deathbed in the same way in 1992.^[2] According to his confession, his aunt with whom he had been staying begged him not to leave her as he had been planning to move to the Cévennes (region of France), so he killed her.^[15]

On 10 February 2026, the Grenoble prosecutor Étienne Manteaux through the National Gendarmerie released an appeal "Call for witnesses" to anyone who had witnessed or was a victim of Leveugle's crimes.^[18] This was the first time the identity and name of the accused was made public.^[19] The public appeal was necessary as many of the victims were recorded by Leveugle in vague pet names or not meantioning the names, making them unidentifiable.^[20][21] As of the public appeal, only 40 individuals had been identified. It is also according to the statutes of French that crimes before 1993 would not be eligible for prosecution.^[19] Manteaux remarked that the urgency and publicity was due to the suspect's age and difficulty in identifying most of the victims.^[15]

A separate homicide investigation was also launched alongside the international public appeal.^[8]