All language subtitles for Caught.in.the.Web.The.Murders.Behind.Zona.Divas.S01E01.SPANISH.NF.WEB.h264-EDITH.en

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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