Influencer jailed for human trafficking and slavery of woman
The influencer was investigated by the FBI.
To her followers, Kat Torres was an inspirational rags to riches success story who went from living in Brazilian slums to partying with Leonardo DiCaprio.
In reality she was responsible for human trafficking and slavery of another woman.
As she sits in a prison cell at the start of an eight-year sentence, she will have time to reflect upon the abuse she meted out against people who were inspired by her story.
When two Brazilian women vanished in 2022, it sparked an FBI search for them across the US. The only clue that they had was that they were living with the ‘wellness influencer’.
One of them had been human trafficked and was being kept as a slave.
Charges have also been filed against her in relation to the second woman and other women have spoken to the BBC about their experience living with her.
Ana, one woman who fell victim to Torres’ coercion but was not reported missing, described her reaction to finding her Instagram page in 2017. She told the BBC: ‘She kind of resembled hope for me. She seemed like she had overcome violence in her childhood, abuse, all these traumatic experiences.
‘She was on the cover of magazines. She was seen with famous people such as Leonardo DiCaprio. Everything I saw seemed credible.’
Torres invited Ana to move to her New York apartment in 2019 to work as her assistant.
This involved her being paid £1,540 a month to cook, clean, look after Torres’ pets and do her laundry.
The reality for Ana was far different, who was forced to sleep on a sofa and be available for Torres all hours of the day.
Ana said she would often escape to the gym to get a few hours of sleep and she was never paid for her work.
She added she only managed to escape after she moved in with a new boyfriend three months later.
Torres was also a famous name on Brazilian TV because she claimed she could make predictions using her spiritual powers.
She reinvented herself as a hypnotist and life coach after her Hollywood friends introduced her to the hallucinogenic drug called ayahuasca, according to her former flatmate Luzer Twersky.
Torres created a wellness website and subscription service that promised its customers ‘love, money and self esteem that you’ve always dreamed of’.
Her one-on-one videos would cost people £115 and would promise to solve ‘any of their problems’.
The other videos on her website offer advice on relationships, business success, and wellness and would use hypnosis, meditation and exercise programmes.
Torres later targeted two other dedicated Instagram followers to come and work for her in her new five-bedroom home she had moved into with her 21-year-old boyfriend Zach in the suburbs of Texas, Austin.
These two Brazilian women were called Desirrê Freitas, who was living in Germany, and Letícia Maia.
Their disappearance would later go on to spark the FBI-led search.
Four other women were also persuaded by Torres to live in her house but they pulled out.
Torres posted a picture of herself to her Instagram alongside Desirrê and Letícia and introduced the pair of them as her ‘witch clan’.
Things quickly escalated into a nightmare for the pair and within weeks, Torres had performed ‘withcraft’ on Desirrê and pressured her into working at a strip club for long hours seven days a week.
The women said they had to ask for permission to leave their bedrooms – even to go to the toilet – and were forbidden from talking to one another.
Torres then set Desirrê ‘earning quotas’ of £2,345 a day, forced her into prostitution, and wouldn’t allow her back home unless she met her target.
But following months of no contact, Desirrê and Letícia’s family launched social media campaigns to try and find them in September 2022.
Ana came across the news and social media campaigns and contacted law enforcement including the FBI because of her suspicions that Torres was keeping other girls.
Torres was panicked by the media storm and took Desirrê and Letícia from Texas to Maine, where they said in a social media video they were not being held captive.
But when a police officer FaceTimed Torres, just before it starts she can be heard saying: ‘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 and the two women were eventually persuaded to attend a welfare check in person in Maine.
This was carried out by Detective David Davol who noticed a number of red flags including a distrust of law enforcement, isolation and their reluctance to speak without Torres’ permission.
Torres was deported back to Brazil and arrested in November 2022.
By December 2022, Desirrê and Letícia had returned to Brazil.
The BBC was granted a court order to interview Torres in prison in Rio de Janeiro in April where she denied any women ever living with her or coercing them.
Torres has appealed her conviction and maintains her innocence but an investigation into allegations from other women in Brazil is ongoing.
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