GhLinks Media
A US judge has been kidnapped while vacationing in Rio de Janeiro and held for $36,000 ransom after hiring two prostitutes, Shayna Monteiro & Beatriz Freitas.
According to police reports, the US judge whose identity has not been revealed yet , arrived in the tourist hot spot on July 3.
The judge said he had known the two women, Shayna Monteiro and Beatriz Freitas, from his previous trips to Rio de Janeiro.
He reached out to the women and invited them Monday to an apartment he rented out in the Copacabana sector.
Monteiro and Freitas left the apartment around 11:30 am but returned an hour later, accompanied by Erivaldo da Silva and Alef dos Santos, who followed them into the judge’s pad and identified themselves as members of the Civil Police force.
Once inside the apartment, da Silva and dos Santos claimed that the women were underage and that he was being placed under arrest.
The men then contacted a female friend of the judge who lives in Rio de Janeiro and told her that they would be taking him to a police station in the North Zone of Rio, but requested a ransom for his release.
Several hours of negotiations went by without any ransom payments being agreed to before they settled on a $36,000 payment.
The woman reached out to a member of the military police department and with the assistance of a kidnapping police unit, where able to agree to a meeting point.
Da Silva went back to Copacabana to pick up the ransom when authorities placed him under arrest.
He then led the cops to the judge’s holding spot. He was rescued without incident.
Da Silva, who has also been identified as the leader of a gang that operates in the West Zone of Rio and was on parole for serving 24 percent of a 15-year sentence for illegal possession of a firearm and criminal association, was charged with extortion and kidnapping.
