Spanish Civil Guard arrested a man in Mallorca after rescuing a 12-year-old girl who had reportedly been kept as a sex slave since 2019.
The man, 49, had allegedly held his stepdaughter hostage for five years and would keep her locked in a basement under his desk.
According to a Spanish media. antenna3, The man traveled for the first time to an African country in 2015 posing as a philanthropist, where he met and ‘lured’ the young woman’s mother with the promise of a better life on the Spanish island.
After a while, the girl’s mother is said to have accepted his offer, and the two married and moved to Mallorca, bringing one of her daughters with them.
As reported by telemadridThe man provided an apartment to the girl’s mother, while he lived separately with the girl, claiming that this way it would be easier for them to bring the rest of their daughters from Africa.
A 49-year-old man is arrested in Mallorca after keeping his stepdaughter locked in a basement and sexually exploiting her.
As a result, he was able to take advantage of his stepdaughter and sexually abuse her.
To keep her quiet, he would threaten to send her and her mother back to Africa, which caused the minor to comply for fear of disappointing her family and not being able to give her sisters a better future in Spain, the Civil Guard stated.
But when the girl discovered that her stepfather was in the process of bringing her sisters to Mallorca, she reported her case to the Oblate Sisters, a group of nuns known for their work helping vulnerable women.
The sisters alerted the Civil Guard, which led to the man’s arrest on Friday.
After a search of his home, agents discovered evidence of child pornography.
The Spanish civil guard shared a video of a search of the man’s home, which led to his arrest.
Images show how the man kept security cameras on his roof
The Civil Guard images show the moment when the agents discovered a space under a desk, with a staircase leading to a basement, where it is believed that the man hid his stepdaughter.
A video shared by the Civil Guard shows the interior of the man’s home, where they find security cameras on the ceiling, as well as a collection of records.
The footage also shows a dark, cramped space hidden under a desk with a staircase leading to a dingy basement, suggested to be where the young girl was being held by her stepfather.
The video ends with the man being escorted into a Civil Guard vehicle.
This case is eerily reminiscent of the kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch in Austria in 1998, who when she was 10 years old was held in a basement by her abductor Wolfgang Priklopil for more than eight years.
During her captivity, Kampusch said she was beaten, starved and made into their sex slave.
The case resonates with the kidnapping of Natascha Kampusch, who was held captive and sexually exploited for eight years after being kidnapped in Austria in 1998.
Kampusch finally escaped in 2006 while her kidnapper was distracted and managed to get the attention of a woman in a nearby house who called the police.
That day, Kampusch recalled in an interview with the German newspaper Bild: “They told me to clean his car.
‘He wanted to sell it and he had told me to clean it very thoroughly and completely. I remember feeling like I could eat a horse because I had to make him jam sandwiches for breakfast, but I didn’t get any.’
Priklopil then took a call on his mobile phone and was momentarily distracted.
‘Before he had watched me all the time. But because of the hum of the vacuum cleaner in my hand, he had to take a few steps away to better understand his interlocutor,” Kampusch continued.
She was then able to open the door and ran to freedom, ending the ordeal that had begun in March 1998, when Priklopil grabbed her as she walked to school.
Priklopil’s decapitated body was found on a railway track in Vienna hours after Kampusch escaped his clutches.