James Warren
A FAKE businessman has been arrested for sexually abusing aspiring models after setting up fake interviews in a Lanzarote hotel.
The Guardia Civil closed in on the criminal after one of the victims blew the whistle on an elaborate scheme to entice young women on the promise of work.
According to the police statement, the man posed as a marketing executive for a body painting company on the island of Lanzarote.
He would contact attractive young women over social media via direct messages pretending to work for a modelling agency looking for models to advertise the products.
Once hooked, the models would then be invited to an undisclosed hotel for a casting call after being promised 3,200 for three separate photo shoots.
The interviews would take place in one of the hotel rooms on the premise that the conference room was closed for COVID-19 reasons.
During the ‘interview’ the women would be asked to change into swimwear to model the products, during which time the interviewer would grope and sexually abuse the models.
The operation was eventually exposed when the police received reports from one of the victims of the activities taking place during the interviews.
During one encounter, the fake businessman arranged to make another appointment with a girl at the same hotel, leading police to identify the man responsible, and an address to where he resided.
Police managed to track down the individual responsible and made an arrest at the man’s home, with full sanitary caution as one of his co-habitants was self-isolating for COVID-19.
In total, two victims have been identified and police of the Costa Teguise judiciary have not ruled out further victims coming forward.
