A predatory rapist who posed as a gay Vogue photographer to snare wealthy young victims has been arrested in Portugal on suspicion of drugging and sexually assaulting a foreign tourist after being released early from prison in Britain.
Fabio Moniz was jailed for life in September 2013 and ordered to serve a minimum of nine years for raping two women he poisoned with GHB after targeting them at fashionable West End nightclubs.
An American tourist he was cleared of attacking four years earlier helped secure his incarceration by giving evidence against him.
Moniz, who charmed women with his ‘cut glass’ accent and immaculate manners, told London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court his life was like that of conman Frank Abagnale portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Catch Me If You Can.
Today the 39-year-old, branded a ‘lone predator’ and a ‘very dangerous character’ by sentencing judge Patricia Lees, was named as the man in custody over the rape of a tourist allegedly drugged and sexually attacked earlier this week at her Portuguese hotel.
Police have accused him of using the same modus operandi he employed against his UK targets – and allegedly filmed his victim naked before stealing her bank cards and using them in shops as she lay incapacitated in her hotel bed.
Moniz, who recently reactivated his Facebook page full of pictures of him posing with women at nightspots in London, is due in court in the Atlantic Coast resort of Cascais near Lisbon later today.
Confirming the arrest overnight and describing the alleged offender as a convicted rapist who was a registered UK sex offender, a spokesman for Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria police force said: ‘The Lisbon and Tagus Valley Directorate of the Judicial Police (PJ) has arrested a 39-year-old man in Cascais, suspected of committing the offences of rape, credit card abuse, invasion of privacy and illicit recordings and photographs, which victimised a 26-year-old woman.
Fabio Moniz, who posed as a gay Vogue photographer to lure his victims, has been arrested in Portugal on suspicion of drugging and sexually assaulting a foreign tourist after being released early from prison in Britain
Moniz was jailed for life in September 2013 and ordered to serve a minimum of nine years for raping two women
‘The victim had been on holiday in Lisbon for two days when she was approached by her attacker at a tourist attraction.
‘The woman accepted his company and they had dinner together, going on to nightclubs in Lisbon and Cascais, where the accused offered her alcoholic drinks.
‘According to the PJ investigation, there are strong indications that the suspect adulterated the drinks, adding toxic substances that made it impossible for the woman to resist his sexual advances.
‘The victim eventually lost consciousness and later realised that she had been forced into non-consensual sexual relations and that the suspect had used her bank card, without her knowledge or authorisation, to make several payments in the early hours of the same morning.
‘The man has a criminal record for theft offences and offences against the freedom and sexual self-determination of several women, and has already served a nine-year prison sentence in the UK for rape.
‘He also has an INTERPOL alert as a ‘sex offender for life under UK law’, with a high risk of sexual violence against women.’
Repeating a chilling claim Met Police made after Moniz was convicted in Britain, the PJ spokesman added: ‘Investigators believe there are more victims.’
It was not immediately clear this morning how long the convicted sex offender had been back in his homeland. He is thought to have been kicked out of Britain after serving the minimum nine years of the two life sentences he was given in 2013.
Moniz is due in court in the Atlantic Coast resort of Cascais near Lisbon later today
He started posting again on a Facebook profile he had been using before his London arrest in October 2021 – after a social media silence of nearly a decade.
In the first of the UK sex attacks Moniz was convicted of, he told two women he met outside the Funky Buddha nightclub that he worked in the fashion business and persuaded them to join him at another club where he spiked their drinks.
Moniz took them back to a flat in Bermondsey, south-east London, where one of the women woke up to discover him trying to have sex with her.
Just 20 days later he targeted an American in her early thirties who was dining alone in Claridges. He told her he was gay and had just finished a Vogue photoshoot before taking her to a club.
She said afterwards she remembered little more except she woke up naked in her hotel room with Moniz beside her.
In both cases he stole personal possessions including credit cards.
An American financial analyst who accused Moniz of raping her in 2009 at a previous trial where he was acquitted, was so convinced he was dangerous she returned to Britain to give evidence against him.
One of his UK rape victims said after he was convicted: ‘He was smartly dressed in a denim shirt, sweater and jeans, and had a cut-glass accent with a slight lisp, saying, ‘Oh sweetie, I work in the fashion business with supermodels.’
‘All the time he must have been thinking about how he could lure me back to his flat and rape me. He was very personable, maybe we were too trusting, but he was easy company.
‘Neither of us fancied Moniz – he appeared to be gay. Every time we strayed away, he would come and find us and say, ‘Come on girls, come back to the table.’
Detective Chief Inspector Pete Thomas, who led the Met Police investigation, said at the time: ‘Moniz is a very, very dangerous individual. I certainly believe he has committed other offences. A lot of his victims will have been drinking.
‘They may not want to come forward because they might not know what’s happened to them. We want them to come forward.’
The nationality of Moniz’s latest alleged rape victim has not been released but she has been described as a foreigner. The hotel she was staying at has not been named.
