Update 2: DSK is now in police custody:

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken into custody on Saturday at JFK airport in New York and was being questioned in regard to a sexual assault, a New York police spokesman told Reuters.



Spokesman Paul Browne said the woman who filed the complaint against Strauss-Kahn, 62, was a 32-year-old chambermaid who fled the room after the incident.



Strauss-Kahn, a possible Socialist candidate in the French presidential election next April, left the hotel after the incident and boarded an Air France aircraft scheduled to depart for Paris, the police spokesman said.



"The NYPD realized he had fled, he had left his cell phone behind," Browne said. "We learned he was on an Air France plane. They held the plane and he was taken off and is now being held in police custody for questioning."



Browne said Strauss-Kahn had not been charged.



Police said the alleged incident took place at the upscale Sofitel hotel on West 44th Street near Times Square.



The chambermaid "was brought by EMS (emergency medical services) to the Roosevelt Hotel, where she was treated for minor injuries," Brown said.



Strauss-Kahn took over the International Monetary Fund in November 2007. Before that, he was a member of the French National Assembly and a professor of economics at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.



The IMF declined to comment and board officials said they had not been informed officially of the incident.



In October 2008, Strauss-Kahn apologized for "an error of judgment" in an affair with a subordinate, but denied he had abused his position.



Strauss-Kahn apologized to employees, the woman he had the affair with, Piroska Nagy, and his wife, French television personality Anne Sinclair, for the trouble it had caused.

Update 1: Strauss Khan to be taken to Police Service Area 5 at 221 East 123rd Street

If there was any threat that the IMF would launch an SDR alternative to the USD, it is all over now. According to the NYPost, IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan (no Bob Pisani, it is not a she) was just arrested on board the first class cabin (thank you taxpayers) of a New York-Paris flight as it was about to take off. And here is where the story gets surreal: "Around noon today, a maid at the hotel [the Sofitel by Times Square] knocked on the door of Strauss-Khan’s room. After letting the maid in, Strauss-Khan allegedly threw the maid on the room’s bed and forced her to perform oral sex on him, said police sources. Strauss-Khan let the maid leave — and soon afterward, headed off to Kennedy Airport for his flight to Paris." Of course this will not be the first sexual misconduct for the head of the world's global pseudo bail out organization: as a reminder back in 2008 the IMF hired a law firm to investigate whether its chief had an improper relationship with a female employee, Piroska Nagy. Back then he got off. This time he won't (even though he did... in a way), and it appears that the IMF is about to lose its head, meaning the fate of literally unlimited bailout funding is now up in the air. Also, it appears that being head of major bureaucracy does not automatically mean getting head on an ad hoc, and involuntary basis. Lastly, we are stunned it was not Herman Von Rompuy or G-Pap on the receiving end.

More from the Post:

His arrest tonight could force him to postpone a planned meeting in Berlin on Sunday with German chancellor Angela Merkel.



Strauss-Khan, a leader of France’s Socialist Party, is the leading rival to President Nicholas Sarkozy in the 2012 election.



Sarkozy was said in a news report yesterday to have begun a smear campaign against his rival that focused on his lavish lifestyle — including Strauss-Khan’s purchase of suits from the same tailor who clothes President Obama.



But Strauss-Khan seems able to find trouble on his own. In 2008, he publicly admitted to "an error of judgment" for having an affair with an IMF subordinate.



In France’s 2007 vote, Strauss-Khan lost the Socialist Party nomination to Segolene Royal, who in turn fell to defeat against Sarkozy, leader of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement.



But Sarkozy, who still sees Strauss-Khan as his likeliest electoral rival, is believed in France to have maneuvered him out of France by backing him to head the Washington-based International Monetary Fund.



Strauss-Khan is married to New York-born Anne Sinclair, a leading French TV journalist.

Naturally, being in charge of the IMF requires one to be not only a sexual deviant, but a thief:

[Strauss-Khan] was Minister of Economy and Finance from 1997 to 1999, when he resigned to battle charges he was paid for consulting work he never did. But judges decided he really did the work, and prosecutors were forced to admit they had no evidence of fraudulent motive.

Next up: we expect a letter from the IMF disclosing how the world will end if charges are pursued and if, heaven forbid, the IMF head is thrown in jail.

In the meantime, the website of the Smoking Gun must be on fire with one million bored Burssels bureaucrats awaiting the release of the IMF head's mugshot.

Lastly, here is an advance preview of the statement to be released by the IMF head (no pun intended): "If questioned about this matter in the future, I will simply refer the questioner back to this release."