Original subtitles

MEXICO CITY

Look, girl. In Mexico, they make a lot of money.

I've been able to save and send money to my family in Venezuela.

They tell you, "You have a client at X hotel in five minutes,"

they send you the taxi,

you go to the room,

you stay for an hour,

do what you came to do, and you leave.

They take your picture because, here, you advertise on a site called Zona Divas.

They're studio photos.

So, they change the photos of you in Photoshop.

See how I look like a total babe in my photos?

I am actually blonde,

but I'm not perfect like in the photos, obviously.

People know I'm on the page because I'm the main image,

and because everyone in Maracaibo knows me.

But there are too many girls there.

We begin with information about something called Zona Divas,

a criminal organization dedicated

to the sexual exploitation of foreign women.

We're here at Hotel Pasadena on Revolución Avenue.

Here, the lifeless body of Karen, a 23-year-old model, was found.

You close the door to the room,

and your safety is paramount.

Who knows if that person will pull a knife once you close the door?

Here in Mexico City, the body of Génesis Gibson,

a young Venezuelan girl, has been found.

The attorney general reports she died by strangulation

in a hotel room in the Venustiano Carranza borough.

Twenty-seven-year-old Venezuelan model Andreína Escalona was killed by gunshots.

In Mexico City,

the attorney general reports their investigation into the femicide...

In total, five escorts have been murdered

in Mexico City, in the State of Mexico.

Someone was dying every day. Or weekly.

It felt like they would kill everyone. It was like the Saw movies.

We didn't know if it was someone that didn't want us working,

a psychopath, a serial killer...

You go to work and don't know if you'll be coming back.

At all the hotels,

all of them,

something has happened.

You really want to do that to me?

Tell me that in a voice message,

"Yes, Kenni, I'm going to kill you."

Hide well, because, seriously,

you won't make it past this week, you fucking whore.

Kenni left evidence.

She left proof

that pointed to him.

THE PORTAL

MEXICO CITY

Any one of us could have money problems tomorrow.

It could happen. And there are drastic solutions.

If you knew what I've done, you'd say, "Brenda is super amoral."

Yeah, "Her morality fluctuates,"

but there are things I wouldn't do.

Nothing will make me ashamed of who I am.

LIST OF ZONA DIVAS ESCORTS, MEXICO CITY

BRENDA STEWART

TRAVEL CALENDAR

EYES: BROWN LANGUAGES: SPANISH

My name is Brenda Stewart. I advertised on Zona Divas in 2011.

And for a brief period in 2012.

I was born in Argentina.

In around 2010, there were certain crises.

There were some family problems.

My grandmother got sick, and she was the best person ever.

I was talking with a hairdresser friend.

He said, "Look, there's a girl in Mexico."

"She's making like 20,000 dollars a month."

There was this iconic woman back then

who was called Silvia.

She would take in girls who were pretty or looked good.

She'd make offers promising independent work.

We sent some photos,

and just 15 days later she told me I'd do this trip,

that I'd go to Mexico.

I arrived at a huge house that,

at first glance, was the size of a mansion.

The first thing I saw were many extremely beautiful girls,

they were spectacular,

with those Caribbean accents that we don't hear in the south.

I saw them go by and said, "I'm ugly."

"Why am I here? I'm leaving. I won't waste your time."

I said, "Okay. I'm already here."

"Let's see what happens."

So, it started as a kind of communal living,

living with the same people for 77 days, like on Big Brother.

I mean, we loved and cared for each other.

We had a group chat, we'd go out together.

We were a family.

You'd arrive, and the next day you'd do your photos.

Once the photos were uploaded, you'd start working.

I'm Candice Miller, I'm Colombian,

and for safety reasons, I need to hide my identity.

The reason I've requested my identity to be hidden

is because, unfortunately, in Mexico, women are not protected by the law,

or the authorities.

Basically, I'm afraid.

I'm allowing an actress to represent me.

CANDICE MILLER IS REPRESENTED BY AN ACTRESS

WHO WILL READ OUT HER TESTIMONY VERBATIM.

I left in 2015.

At that time in my story,

I had some money problems in my personal and family life.

I made the decision to start working at some places in Bogotá.

In those places where I worked, I met a lot of girls.

One was a Venezuelan girl.

She connected me with the people who got me started here in Mexico.

And that automatically got me into debt with them.

The debt included the payment for services on the advertisement page.

It included housing services,

food, transportation,

photos to begin the process of advertising as a companion.

There were other girls whose debt was for tickets to enter the country.

I arrived to the city on my own,

but I was welcomed by them.

I could've done it on my own,

but I didn't have the information at that time.

You have to look for alternatives and see what you can do,

because no one is going to come fix your life. No one.

The truth is, the debt was something very logical.

It was transportation costs.

"You have so many days to make an economic difference."

"The percentages are 60/40. It's a job from one schedule to the next."

"You'll be at a safe and protected house, then you'll go home afterward."

"If we see each other, we pretend we don't know each other."

The Zona Divas page was easy to access.

Anyone could use it.

You'd type in www.zonadivas.com,

a window would pop up asking, "Are you of legal age?"

Of course everyone said, "Yes."

On the top part of the page

was a picture of Kenni Finol.

There would be between one and 25 pages,

depending on how many girls they had advertising.

You'd enter a profile,

and see the photo gallery.

Next to those photos was a section with the name, height, and measurements.

CANDICE MILLER EYES: BROWN

You'd send an email to webmaster@zonadivas.com

saying, "Hi, I'm so-and-so."

"I'd like to advertise with you. What do I have to do?"

They'd email you saying,

"We need this information and professional photos."

And depending on the page you appeared on,

the amount you'd have to pay.

They'd tell you that you had to sign a contract with a notary.

The contract would say it's not trafficking,

that the only agreement the girl had with Zona Divas

was for advertising.

That it was exactly as was promised, that it was voluntary.

That no one forced you.

You'd be treated very well.

I can't say I had a bad experience, because I didn't.

My passport wasn't taken from me,

I wasn't forced to do anything, really.

The truth is, Zona Divas had an image that they had your back,

and it made that photo, that advertisement, seem more high-class.

I remember, there were two photographers. One took super vulgar photos.

He was like, "Take your clothes off and open your legs." Word for word.

The other photographer was more professional.

He had a house designated for that.

The house is still there.

In its prime, it was a pink house.

The whole house was full of scenes, on each floor.

Depending on the girl's profile,

he'd say, "You'll look good here," or "You'll look better like this."

It was a very professional studio.

In Mexico, like in Argentina, there weren't pages.

Unfortunately, so to speak,

the table girls were being held, they were in terrible situations.

These girls worked at night,

and in the day, they had nothing to do.

They felt like they were wasting their time.

That's where the idea was born to make this page and make it so dynamic

that it could accommodate people from anywhere.

You had an example of how you might be successful.

The origin of the Zona Divas portal has been revealed.

According to Brenda Stewart,

Zona Divas emerged from a chat between Ignacio Antonio Santoyo Cervantes,

or Soni,

a former partner nicknamed "Toni,"

and several Argentine women during a table dance.

He'd frequent these places and would usually help the girls.

He'd rescue them.

What he did was progress something that was already happening elsewhere.

This isn't just in Mexico, it's worldwide.

I mean, it is a business.

Where there are men, there's prostitution.

It's that simple.

If this exists in Germany, why not here?

What would be the point in it not existing?

I mean, why is it wrong if it's going to happen anyway?

It's like drugs. It's the same thing.

They'll still be there.

INTERVIEW WITH IGNACIO SANTOYO "SONI" ZONA DIVAS FOUNDER

We know the following will be extremely controversial,

but we present it here in this space.

Ignacio Antonio Santoyo Cervantes, or Soni,

CEO of Zona Divas.

Thanks for speaking with me, Ignacio. Good morning. How are you?

The first thing they say is that we're a dangerous crime syndicate,

that we're a criminal group.

-False. -Okay.

We're a legally established company

that pays taxes and has an audit every fiscal year.

We're a company that doesn't violate the law.

We simply advertise escort services,

which, in the eyes of many, is morally reproachable.

But, in the legal framework of Mexico,

we're not committing any crime.

The primary agency was owned by the owner of the page.

But it wasn't like, "I'll go with him and be successful." No.

You'd have the same luck with your own photos and whatnot.

The advantage you'd have would be that he'd say,

"This photo. This color suits you."

But above everything was his vision.

He was the eye and creator of the product's image.

For us, he was a kind of protector.

Like a daddy. He protected and understood us.

There were 35 divas per page.

And there were 25 pages.

How many girls were there?

Multiply that by 3,500, which was the average.

Wow.

That guy's a bastard no matter how you look at it, right?

But he's also excellent at doing business.

Stupid he is not.

I found a page called

Zona Divas.

It advertised various girls

for sexual services.

Well, look. I'm a 40-year-old man.

You try to fill the void you have.

I had partners that, well, yeah, we had sex, but then,

they weren't as open to other things.

You could get that from an escort.

If your partner didn't want to,

you could do it with her.

We're the subject of their desire.

One guy would always say it made him want to save.

I mean, it was a luxury.

Once, at a quinceañera I had to go to,

I looked at the guy and said,

"This is bad. How can you bring a stranger?"

Poor girl, I shouldn't be in her quinceañera photos,

at church, with all I had to do, pretending to be his girlfriend.

There's a wide range of escort clients.

Here, I've escorted people from right under the president,

to a university professor.

Businessmen. Lawyers, about ten.

Even doctors have hired me.

You hire a girl to see you at X time at X hotel.

You arrive first,

you get the room,

and, generally, what the girls do

is wait until they hear from you.

Or they will call you on the hotel phone to make sure you're there.

At that time, anal sex with a girl cost 3,000, 3,500.

A threesome, 5,000 pesos.

They're luxury goods.

They're not basic consumer goods.

You had to pay a bit more to be on the first pages.

Otherwise, you'd be on page 15, 20, 28, 30.

So you'd have less exposure and fewer calls.

You didn't want to be on the first page either because it was too exposing.

I paid 5,500 for the third page.

The first page cost 7,500.

The first page is cannon fodder.

It was an example of what I call "drug trafficker beauty,"

because it's what calls to and attracts those types of people.

Once, a kind of weird client made an appointment with me.

I got to the hotel room.

He was sitting in a chair. He didn't speak to me.

He signaled for me to take off my clothes and lie down on the bed.

He spent like 45 minutes just looking at me naked.

It gets to you, 45 minutes not talking, saying nothing.

50,000 things running through your head.

Of 100 people, if you come across one dangerous one,

you've already messed up.

Everyone thinks this job is easy,

that it's easy money.

But this is not easy money.

In short, this is fast money,

which is completely different.

While I was in Mexico,

many of my friends went through the same thing.

Because a lot of them went.

Actually, on the page they...

It's what you want, and if you want.

You're paying for the page

to upload your content.

I used to straighten Kenni Finol's hair. And blow-dry it.

She'd say, "Manchu! Come! Dry my hair!"

I still need to flat iron my hair up here.

I washed it yesterday but it was a horrible day.

So I need to flat iron the part up here,

and I'll leave the bottom part.

Very kind. She was one of those people you'd feel like talking to,

you'd want to stay with.

Extremely beautiful.

Gorgeous.

She designated herself the most expensive doll in the shop,

it suited her very well.

She was very extroverted, very happy, she was very...

She was herself.

I never got tired of looking at her because she was so lovely.

She said, "Sis, if you only knew, this beauty brings nothing but problems."

I'm Massiel, Kenni's older sister.

My name is Dina.

I'm Kenni's second sister.

Kenni was always with Mom, always a mommy's girl.

While growing up, they moved to an area called 1º de Mayo,

a dangerous area here in Maracaibo.

It's known for crime,

for poverty,

for men who are inclined to do horrible things.

Mostly for the men.

And there are a lot of gangs.

Kenni started to dream.

"Mom, I want to buy you a house."

She was tired

of having to move so much.

I mean, living in rentals.

At some point, they were evicted, they had to find somewhere else to live.

That wore on her.

Nevertheless, with the little she had,

she was a restless girl, and lively.

With that attitude she had.

That sex appeal.

My name is Deiny Machado and I'm Kenni Finol's "Machi."

"Machi" means friend.

She called me "Machi" and I called her it too.

But I won't invite you. I'm here with Lori.

Very boring.

You live too far away to invite you. I'm going to make bollos pelones.

Tell me how you really are.

What are you doing?

Machi grew up with her.

He knew everything about her. He was her friend, brother, and confidant.

She had very few friends.

She knew a lot of people, but very few of them were friends.

When Kenni did something, she'd tell her mom first.

Always her mom.

They had a spectacular relationship.

You know I'm your mother and your father.

I'm your warrior until death.

Forward and nothing else. Us two taking on the world.

I love you so much, Mom.

You're my big butt, my dinosaur butt.

Well, honey, have a good night.

May God bless you and the blood of Christ cover you,

the sacred mantle envelop you, and the angels surround you.

Kenni lived alone with her mom, but her mom started to get sick

and she needed a lot of medication.

It was her heart.

The medication Mrs. Mireya used was only available

outside the country.

She said, "I can't just watch my mom die."

"I need to leave to find a way for her not to die."

Kenni decided to leave.

I didn't like her perspective, that she had to go,

and I begged her not to.

Good morning.

Hello.

I moved into a super beautiful apartment.

I texted her.

And she began crying.

She said that what she was doing wasn't easy,

but that her sacrifice had a goal,

that she was already there

and would try to do it.

I'm working now.

I'll send you the hundred that I told you about, okay?

That way, you at least have some support.

I'll be helping you like that every 15 days.

Anything you need from me, don't be shy,

if I have it, I'll give it to you.

Kenni used to cry a lot.

There was a time when she got sick,

and she would cry and say that her body hurt a lot,

that she didn't want to keep working.

She would use this phrase, she told me,

that even her hands hurt.

I don't know why. It was one of her sayings.

I'd say to her, "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to do this job anymore. I'm tired."

Girl, I spent all day yesterday with horrible abdominal pain.

Horrible because they made me work like that.

I don't feel very well, I want to rest already.

A friend of hers told us that she'd tell us things superfluously.

Rather that, in reality, she didn't tell us

how bad things really were.

At times, entering this life is easy.

Entering.

But it's hard to get out.

Imagine how badly I need the money

to work as a whore.

Imagine that.

If I didn't need the money, I wouldn't do this work.

I'd work at a mall, like girls my age normally would.

At that time, in 2016,

we'd charge 2,500 pesos for a service.

We had to pay the taxi 400 pesos,

then 700 pesos for food,

and we still had the commission of 1,000 pesos.

In other words, the agency charged us.

Things started happening with the owner of the apartment too.

She arrived one day and we were all there.

Apparently the agency owed like three months in rent.

And, well, she needed to know what was going on in her apartment.

So the lady asked to speak with someone.

Everyone turned to look at me,

and the lady said, "Hey, you!"

"Are you interested in renting this apartment?"

When I asked how much it was, she told me it was 10,000 pesos.

We did the math for all of us living there.

We were each being charged 7,500

and there were bunk beds.

We slept one under the other.

That's when alarm bells went off.

Mr. Ignacio, you've explained to us that you have the models,

as you refer to them,

sign clauses saying that they're doing what they're doing

of their own free will.

They've reached out to us to express that...

they do their job, their activities, of their own free will.

I mean, we know them perfectly,

they're models who say, "I can face anyone."

And there are personnel at our company

who verify that the person that shows up to sign with us

perfectly matches the photo books

and documentation that they've previously sent us.

EYES: BROWN LANGUAGES: SPANISH

CARACAS, VENEZUELA

Wendy.

She refuted everything.

There was nothing you could tell her that she wouldn't refute.

"Why does everything have to be as you say?

"You're so square, Mom."

I'm like, "Okay. I'm square. What are you like?"

"Hexagonal. I've got several points."

That's how she was.

She was a whirlwind.

Here is my girl pregnant with her baby.

My precious gorda. My daughter.

This is my daughter.

At the time when...

when Wendy decided to leave Venezuela,

our situation was extremely uncertain.

We didn't even have food.

We're hungry! We want to eat!

We're hungry! We want to eat!

We're hungry! We want to eat!

The village is hungry!

Take out the food, because there is food!

There is food!

Take it out!

In the morning there was one price, in the afternoon it was different.

We're not talking luxury or anything, just basic things.

We couldn't afford them.

I started talking with my kids, I told them that

we'd have to take other actions

regarding whether we wanted to stay in the country or not.

Wendy left first.

...253 heading to Mexico City...

She left, and it wasn't like, "I'm leaving tomorrow."

The day of she said to me,

"Mommy, I didn't tell you but I've gone to Mexico."

I'm like, "What Mexico are you talking about?"

"Why didn't you tell me anything?"

"What are you doing

that I can't know about?"

Essentially, we're deceived when we go.

My name is Daniela

and I've requested anonymity for safety reasons.

I'm going to tell you about how I met Wendy.

For a time, she was my best friend.

We supported each other a lot.

She was a very simple girl,

a good friend,

a good mother, a good companion.

We knew that we'd come to work as escorts,

but not in the manner that we'd be forced.

As soon as we got here, we were made to record a video,

like a contract that we'd be working for them for three months.

They took our documentation, our passport.

We couldn't go out unless it was with a driver.

They told us,

"You came here to be our whore."

"To do what we say."

Oral sex with no condom.

Exposure on social networks.

To treat the men like boyfriends, recording videos of sex with clients.

I think that day...

I cursed so much.

I cursed the economic situation in Venezuela so much.

I'd say to her, "Wendy, I need you to come."

"For God's sake, come."

Can you ensure that, on your page, you advertise escorts?

You call them models.

That you advertise models that are not trafficking victims?

Can you ensure that?

And six of the models advertising on your page,

six, Mr. Ignacio,

are dead.

Yes, unfortunately they are dead, because...

I must insist on this question. Can you ensure that?

They monitored their phone calls as much as possible.

"It's normal. They're not doing anything to us."

"We do the service and then we go to the house."

There were days when she wouldn't leave, and I'd talk to her almost the whole day.

I'd be working with my phone, talking to her.

I felt...

that mother's intuition when you know your daughter...

is going through something but isn't telling you.

I felt that.

The three months that were promised went by.

We paid the debt,

but they kept charging us for other things we had no reason to pay.

We had the chance to escape one Sunday, and we did.

We went to Puebla,

but they blocked us from the page, we couldn't work on Zona Divas.

Good evening, gentlemen...

They began threatening us.

Some people showed up to hurt us at the club we were working at in Puebla.

They said if we didn't work for them

then we should leave the country

because they'd kill us.

I was terrified that Wendy was alone.

FEBRUARY 3, 2017

On the 3rd, we talked in the morning...

like usual.

"Mommy, it would be safest if I left,

but nothing is confirmed yet."

It was 6:30.

"How weird that Wendy hasn't called."

7:00.

And I started calling her.

She didn't answer.

I called so many times,

left so many voicemails

that it told me that her mailbox was full.

Obviously, I didn't sleep that night.

DRAMATIZATION INVESTIGATION FILE / WENDY

Yesterday,

at approximately 6:10 p.m.,

a man presented before me

whose characteristics I don't remember.

I asked him how long he'd need the room.

He replied that he'd spend the night.

I proceeded to hand him his contract to fill out.

This man filled it out himself

and registered under the name Jaime Rodríguez.

I then gave him the key to room 412.

This heart of mine...

was one thing...

Between my heart and my mind, there was a connection, and I said,

"Something has happened, and if I don't move from this spot,

I won't find out what happened to my daughter."

I remember them calling me from our Office of Consular Affairs in Caracas

and telling me they were with the mother of a girl who was living here.

They told me it had been days since she'd heard from her.

I saw a little piece of news, it was like this big.

"The body of a young woman has been found at X hotel."

At the end she added, "I hope it's not my daughter."

From there, I went to the morgue.

It was the first body I had to identify here in Mexico.

He said to me...

"It's her, ma'am."

"It's your daughter."

A woman has been discovered naked and beaten at this Hotel Príncipe.

She was my sun.

She was my little girl.

I felt like...

like a mother who didn't know how to do her job.

A WOMAN WAS INVITED TO A HOTEL AND WOUND UP MURDERED

THE MAN SUSPECTED OF HER MURDER WALKED RIGHT OUT OF THE HOTEL

It was really hard on me.

You don't cry, you don't suffer.

It happens. You see history repeat itself.

You'll see another girl die.

Like that girl, at that hotel,

in that room that I've also given service in.

It could happen to me.

Zona Divas does not work with trafficking.

We oppose it.

And for any reports made against us

that, presumably, X person is a victim of trafficking,

we take action.

Ignacio Antonio Santoyo, Soni,

CEO of Zona Divas, thanks for speaking with us.

We wanted to go back to Venezuela, but we couldn't work

and didn't have money to buy flights.

The only way we had work was meeting Soni.

Whenever something happened with any girl,

any problem with the agency,

he'd block you

and the requirement to get back on the page

was a party with drugs, threesomes,

women with women,

all to satisfy his sexual fantasies.

Wendy and I did it.

We went to one of Soni's parties.

We had to have sex with him that day without protection.

It was the only way we would be able to work.

If I want to suck on those tits right now, what? I can't?

I want to put my dick deep in your mouth first.

Then I'll put you on your hands and knees.

Soni knew about everything that happened with us.

Soni was like a shadow.

He'd call the girl he liked from the first pages.

He'd say, "If you're not with me, under my conditions,

I'll take you off the page."

There was a rumor in the group chats between the girls

that he had a sexually transmitted disease.

A friend of mine told me that a guy called her,

and when she denied him service, he said, "Do you know who I am?"

"I'm the king, Ignacio Antonio Santoyo."

"I'm Soni."

ZONA DIVAS IMAGES HAVE BEEN MODIFIED TO PROTECT IDENTITIES.

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