The model daughter of a British businessman is recovering after a terrifying kidnap ordeal in Brazil.
Luciana Curtis, who has worked with the likes of Beyonce and appeared on the front cover of magazines including Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan, was taken hostage with her photographer husband Henrique Gendre and their 11-year-old child as they left a restaurant in Sao Paulo.
The armed robbers that ambushed them held them for around 12 hours and reportedly stole their car and took money from their bank accounts before releasing them yesterday.
Local reports said they were kept overnight in a wooden shack in Brasilandia, one of Sao Paulo’s 96 districts, with just a mattress, toilet and sink after being driven to the cramped hideaway in the family car by their captors.
Their terrifying ordeal began on Wednesday night as they left an eatery in the upmarket area of Alto do Lapa.
The alarm is said to have been raised on Thursday morning after the kidnapped couple’s eldest child discovered the rest of her family had not returned home and alerted a relative who called police.
Luciana and her husband and her youngest child were released by their captors as the police hunt for them began and they sought help from locals before being taken to safety.
Luciana Curtis, the model daughter of a British businessman is recovering after a terrifying kidnap ordeal in Brazil
Luciana’s husband Henrique Gendre (left) was also abducted, along with their 11-year-old child
The criminals that took them hostage stole their car before abandoning the hideaway they had kept them in and are understood to have transferred money from the couple’s bank accounts to their own during the terrifying ordeal.
A spokesman for Luciana, 53, confirmed the kidnap to local press, adding: ‘The family has been released and they are safe and well.’
A specialist police anti-kidnap unit is investigating and officers have been analysing CCTV footage around the unnamed restaurant where the gang struck, which is located on an avenue identified locally as Avenida Pio XI.
The shack pretty brunette Luciana and her family were taken to has already been located by detectives and pictured in Brazilian press.
Police said in a statement: ‘The armed criminals approached the victims outside a restaurant and took them captive.
‘During the search by specialist police teams, the gang abandoned the family and fled.’
Ford Models beauty Luciana Curtis was born in Sao Paulo to British businessman father Malcolm Leo Curtis and Brazilian teacher mum Katia Maria Furtado de Mendonca Curtis.
Her main residence is in New York although she spent several years living in London.
She won the Brazilian final of Supermodel of the World in 1993 after receiving an invite to become a model during a visit to a shopping centre as a teenager and in the world final placed in the top four.
She went on to become the cover of a string of fashion magazines including Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire and Nova and has done ads for the likes of Arden B, Harrods, H&M and Victoria’s Secret.
Luciana, who has 22,000 Instagram followers, earned an estimated million dollars to star in Revlon campaigns in 2001 alongside three other models.
Shortly afterwards she took part in the worldwide campaign for L’Oreal’s ‘True Match’ powder and foundation with Beyonce.
She appeared earlier this year alongside other models on the front cover of ELLE Brazil, which said in a write-up accompanying the photo: ‘The cover of ELLE Brasil #Volume16 is an ode to Brazilian supermodels who, from the late 1990s to the present day, have been taking the profession abroad, appearing on catwalks for major brands and becoming muses of legendary stylists and established photographers.’
Luciana and her husband have yet to make any official comment about their ordeal.
