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An Instagram influencer and former Brazilian model, who went from living in poverty to partying with Leonardo DiCaprio, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for human trafficking and slavery of women.
Katiuscia “Kat” Torres was convicted on June 28 in Rio de Janeiro after being caught in Maine and deported to Brazil where she was arrested in November 2022.
The investigation began when two Brazilian women vanished in early 2022, causing the FBI to launch a search in the US based on information that they were living with the wellness influencer.
Torres, who had millions of followers on Instagram, was convicted of human trafficking and the slavery of one of those women, the BBC reported. Charges have also been filed against Torres in relation to a second woman, according to the outlet.
In a BBC documentary filmed earlier this year, Torres maintained her innocence from a Rio prison.
Torres was crowned Miss Caieiras in 2012 and became a successful model before she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She then used her influencer lifestyle to gain millions of followers on Instagram.
She later worked as a model in Paris, and was photographed partying with Leonardo DiCaprio at an event in Cannes.
Now, more than 20 women have come forward to share their harrowing experiences of living with Torres including Desirrê Freitas and Leticia Maia Alvarenga, the two women who sparked the FBI search, according to BBC who reviewed court documents and Freitas’ memoir about her experiences.
The pair, along with a third woman, who the BBC is calling “Sol,” were recruited by Torres and introduced as the “witch clan” to her followers, according to the BBC.
Torres would reportedly recruit women to come work for her and in exchange offered them a place to stay at her mansion in Austin where she promised to help them achieve their dreams. But within weeks, many of the women found reality was not what had been promised, they said.
Freitas said Torres pressured her into working at a local strip club, and said that if she did not comply she would have to repay all the money she had spent on her, which she did not have. Freitas was also terrified because Torres had threatened to curse her for not following orders.
Sol, who spoke to BBC, said there were strict house rules at the Austin mansion. The women were not allowed to speak to each other and they needed Torres’ permission to leave their rooms, even to go to the bathroom. Any money they made at their jobs were handed over to Torres.
“It was very difficult to, you know, get out of the situation because she holds your money,” Sol told the BBC. “It was terrifying. I thought something could happen to me because she had all my information, my passport, my driving license.”
While Sol was able to leave with the help of an ex-boyfriend, others were not as lucky.
Some of the women were told they needed to work as prostitutes as “punishment.”
Torres reportedly told Freitas that she needed to switch from working at the strip club to being a prostitute. When Freitas refused, Torres took her to a gun range, which scared her into giving in.
“Many questions haunted me: ‘Could I stop whenever I wanted?’” Freitas writes in her book. “And if the condom broke, would I get a disease? Could [the client] be an undercover cop and arrest me? What if he killed me?”
Freitas recalled Torres had set a quota of $3,000 a day, and if they could not make it, they were not allowed to return to the house that night.
“I ended up sleeping on the street several times because I couldn’t reach that,” Freitas said.
Freitas added that Torres threatened to report her to the police if she ever tried to stop prostitution, which is illegal in Texas.
By September of that year, the women’s loved ones had grown worried after months of no contact and launched social media campaigns to try to find them.
But Freitas said their brunette hair had been dyed platinum blonde, making both women unrecognizable, and their cell phone contacts had been blocked.
Torres began to panic because of the media attention and they moved from Texas to Maine. She posted videos on Instagram featuring the two women, who denied being held captive.
The social media campaigns are what helped another woman, identified only as Ana, realize she had possibly been one of the victims. Like many of the other women, Ana was attracted to Torres’ “rags-to-riches” story when she came across her Instagram page in 2017.
“She kind of resembled hope for me. She seemed like she had overcome violence in her childhood, abuse, all these traumatic experiences,” Ana told the BBC.
Ana, who was looking for an escape after moving to the US from Brazil on her own and being in an abusive relationship, moved into Torres’ New York apartment in 2019 to work as her assistant. “She was on the cover of magazines. She was seen with famous people such as Leonardo DiCaprio. Everything I saw seemed credible,” she said.
But Ana found that Torres could not do basic things without her, like taking a shower, because she did not want to be alone, according to BBC. She had to be by Torres’ side, and was only allowed to sleep for a few hours at a time on a couch covered in cat urine, she said. She was never paid.
“Now, I see that she was using me as a slave… she had satisfaction in it,” Ana told BBC. “I felt like, ‘I’m stuck here, I don’t have a way out. I was probably one of her first victims of human trafficking.”
When Ana saw the news about the missing women and their connection to Torres, she contacted the FBI to see what she could do to help.
In November 2022, the police were able to convince Torres, Freitas and Maia to attend a welfare check in person at Franklin County Sheriff’s Office in Maine, the BBC reported.
By December, both women had been safely returned to Brazil. Torres was deported to Brazil where she was arrested on human trafficking charges.
In April 2024, she told the BBC that she was innocent and denied the allegations against her. “When I was seeing the people testifying, they were saying so many lies. So many lies that at one point, I couldn’t stop laughing,” she told the outlet.
“People are saying I am a fake guru, but at the same time, they are also saying that… ‘She is a danger to society because she can change people’s mind with her words.’”
On June 28, a Brazilian judge sentenced Torres to eight years in prison for the human trafficking slavery of Freitas. The judge concluded that she had lured the young woman to the US for the purpose of sexual exploitation, the BBC reported.
Torres’ lawyer told the BBC she has appealed her conviction and maintains her innocence. An investigation into the allegations from other women is ongoing in Brazil.
Desirrê writes in her book that she wants her story to help others. “I’m not fully recovered yet, I’ve had a challenging year. I was sexually exploited, enslaved and imprisoned,” she wrote. “I hope my story serves as a warning.”
