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Who Is Kat Torres? All About Influencer Who Once Partied With Leonardo DiCaprio As She Is Sentenced For Trafficking And Slavery
Brazilian influencer Kat Torres, who once clicked with Leonardo DiCaprio, has been sentenced to 8 years for human trafficking and slavery after exploiting and manipulating innocent Brazilian women.
Trigger Warning: This article includes references to sexual exploitation, prostitution, and human trafficking.
Brazilian influencer Kat Torres has been making headlines as she gets arrested on the charges of human trafficking and slavery. Torres previously garnered the spotlight as he went online for partying with Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio. Several reports even claimed that DiCaprio and Torres dated for a brief period. Now as Torres gets dragged behind the bars on such charges, her past photos with DiCaprio continue to re-emerge.
Why did Kat Torres get arrested?
The investigation against Torres began back in September 2022, when two Brazilian women went reportedly missing. Following this the FBI launched an operation to find these missing women. As per the reports, retrieved via BBC, Torres would dupe young women from Brazil and would manipulate them to fly to the USA and forcibly work for her.
These young women were influenced by Torres, who was popular for spending time with Hollywood A-lister stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio. Influenced by her status many women were easily duped by Torres who claimed to improve their lives if they worked for her in the USA. The Brazilian influencer even claimed in her autobiography titled, A Voz, that she possessed spiritual powers.
“She was on the cover of magazines. She was seen with famous people such as Leonardo DiCaprio. Everything I saw seemed credible,” Ana claimed. Ana though was not one of the missing women but she was a victim of Torres’s malicious schemes. She subsequently helped the FBI in arresting the influencer.
Torres even ran her website on the subscription model and promised her customers the "Love, money, and self-esteem that you always dreamed of.” Torres destroyed many women’s lives, two of the Brazillian women who came out to the media are Desirrê Freitas and Letícia Maia.
Torres persuaded Letícia when she was just 14 years old and kept convincing her to move to the US through her so-called life coaching sessions. Whereas for Desirrê, Torres booked her flight tickets to the US and then forced her to work in a strip club. Sol, another victim of Torres, moved to the US after she became homeless and agreed to work for the influencer as a tarot card reader and yoga instructor.
But soon these young ladies realized that Kat Torres was a different woman as she started showing her true colors when these women reached her home. As per Desirrê, within weeks of their arrival, they were pushed to work in strip clubs. Upon her protest, Torres would threaten them to pay back all her money which she invested on their flights, furniture, and accommodation.
Eventually, Desirrê and other women agreed to work in the local strip clubs. A manager of the strip club, James, confirmed that these women would work for long hours for straight seven days a week without any offs.
How did Kat Torres get caught?
Desirrê and Sol stated that within Torres' house, all the girls were subjected to strict rules and regulations. They were not permitted to talk to each other and were not allowed to leave their rooms even for the washroom, until they got permission from Torres. Further, they all had to immediately deposit their daily earnings to Torres.
“It was very difficult to, you know, get out of the situation because she holds your money. It was terrifying. I thought something could happen to me because she had all my information, my passport, my driving license,” Sol stated.
Sol however decided to escape, with the help of her ex-boyfriend, when she overheard Torres’ conversation with one of her clients requiring a prostitute in Brazil. The victims further stated that all the confined women were forced to hand over $3,000 per day to Torres or else they were not allowed to enter the house.
Desirrê's bank statement, as retrieved via BBC, makes it clear that she transferred over USD 21,000 into Torres’ account in just two months. Torres’ scandal came to limelight when Desirrê and Letícia’s family and friends launched a social media campaign, back in Brazil, to aid in their search, amid their missing reports.
However, Torres transformed the look of these two girls completely, making them unrecognizable. After the search campaign started gaining momentum online, the missing women’s profiles were spotted on escort and prostitution websites, hinting that they might be the victims of sexual exploitation.
All this panicked Torres who then forced Desirrê and Letícia to make an Instagram video, where they denied any claims of being held without their consent and requested to halt the search process. But by this time Detective David Davol managed to FaceTime Torres to check on the real-time status of the women and noticed many red flags. During the call, Torres was heard forcing victims to manipulate their answers.
“He will start asking questions. Guys, they are full of tricks. He’s a detective, be very careful. For God’s sake, I’ll kick you out if you say anything. I’ll scream,” Torres then said. All this convinced the authorities to arrest Torris and subsequently unveil the tragic stories of the victim.
By December 2022, all the victims safely returned to their homes in Brazil. Kat Torres was arrested for 8 years on the charges of human trafficking and slavery. The reports, as retrieved by News 18, stated that the influencer conned over 20 women and their investigation is still underway.
Disclaimer: If you need support or know someone who is struggling with domestic violence or assault or abuse, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist, NGO or speak to someone about it. There are several helplines available for the same.
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