INTERPOL INVESTIGATES MISSING FORMER MISS BRAZIL

(Source)--Partial interview with reporter Carmen Gentile who was featured on the Greta Van Susteren show:

VAN SUSTEREN: Is it at all realistic — I mean, this whole idea of human trafficking — are the Brazilian police taking that as a serious possibility?


GENTILE: I think that the police are looking into it as a possibility because she had mentioned that she had a boyfriend who was Polish. Now, a friend of hers supposedly said that she had seen her last year in Europe and said that she was seeing this man and that she was, at that time, looking for money, looking for clothes, had no place to live. So they are looking into the possibility that trafficking — that she was snared into a trafficking ring, as women from Brazil sometimes are.


VAN SUSTEREN: Is she on good terms with her parents, so it isn't simply just that she hasn't spoken to her parents in six months?


GENTILE: No, I don't think that's the case. A former boyfriend of hers has told a leading Brazilian newspaper that he knew that they had very strong relations, that they were very close, and that he did not think that there was some kind estrangement between Taiza and her parents.

INTERPOL AND BRAZIL FEDS INVESTIGATING
MISSING TAIZA THOMSEN

Human trafficking is suspected--Not ruled out

Interpol and Brazil's federal police are investigating the case of former Miss Brazil Taiza Thomsen, who has been missing since September 2006, police said on Monday.


The 24-year-old blue-eyed brunette was crowned Miss Brazil in the 2002 pageant, following victories in beauty contests in her hometown Joinville, and Santa Catarina state in the south of the country. Thomsen has lived in Sao Paulo over the past few years and has seldom been seen in Joinville, friends said. However, fears for her safety were aroused after she failed to make contact with her family for nearly five months.


Her father called the police on Thursday. Police suspect the former beauty queen could be a victim of a human-trafficking scheme, but concrete evidence of this is yet to emerge. One friend told a local TV network that she and some other friends met Thomsen in London last year, where she announced that she was about to marry a Polish man in Europe. There have also been rumors among the people of Joinville that Thomsen fled the area after getting pregnant while having an affair with the town's mayor, who is married.

More information:

(Source)--Police said Saturday they weren't discarding the possibility that human trafficking played a role in the disappearance of Taiza Thomsen, 24, who represented Brazil at the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama.

"At this moment we can't rule out anything, not even the possibility she was a victim of human trafficking," stated police investigator Marcos David Salem.

Previous article on Taiza Thomsen's disappearance here