Model daughter of British businessman kidnapped and held hostage by thieves

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, 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 took stole their car and 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 by their captors.

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 family were released by their captors just as the police hunt for the three began.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Shortly afterwards she took part in the worldwide campaign for L’Oreal’s ‘True Match’ powder and foundation with Beyonce.

Luciana and her husband have yet to make any official comment about their ordeal.

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