Fugitive Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi surfaced in Brazil and was arrested by police there Thursday, on charges from Mexico that she and her manager lured young girls into her act and used them as sex slaves. Trevi and her manager, Sergio Andrade, were arrested and detained in Rio de Janeiro.
Mexican authorities accuse Trevi and Andrade of corrupting minors by encouraging them to join a "school" and promising to train them as singers and dancers for Trevi's band, Boquitas Pintadas (Little Painted Mouths), says Cox News Service. The family of one such girl, who was 12 when she signed up to join Trevi and Andrade, says now-17-year-old Karina Yapor was sexually abused by Andrade and forced to work as a prostitute, Cox says.
She returned to Mexico last year and offered interviews contradicting a claim by her parents that Andrade fathered her son, who's been turned over to her parents in Mexico, Cox says. Andrade's former wife and another former member of the Trevi troupe, however, tells the news service they and other women were virtual prisoners and that Trevi had procured girls for Andrade regularly.
Both denied any such abuses, but the former Mrs. Andrade captured headlines with a book about the scandal, Cox says.
Trevi became famous in the late 1980s and early 1990s for her music and her sexy, rebellious image which challenged authority in general and male domination in particular as well as politics. She was renowned for posing nude in calendars and posters while performing in a sexual style and appearance.
When she was arrested, Mexican television reported the story complete with tapes of Trevi performing in torn clothes and rubbing Coca-Cola over her body.
