Italian police are looking for a five-year-old Peruvian girl who has disappeared from a hotel in Florence for several days. informs Republic.
The incident took place on June 10. Cataleya Mia Chisillo Alvarez, the daughter of Peruvian immigrants, who was living with 140 other illegal immigrants in the former Astor Hotel in Florence, was abducted by unidentified persons in a suitcase.
The only witness to the murder was another girl. He is three years old. She said she lived in the same hotel as Cataleya and cried when she saw how an unidentified man dragged the abducted woman.
After the initial hours of unsuccessful searches, the Alvarez family announced through their lawyers that they planned to conduct their own investigation into the kidnapping. After the disappearance of her child, the girl’s mother tried to commit suicide out of desperation and was taken to the hospital.
The girl’s father, Miguel, suggested that the kidnapping could be an attempt to blackmail or pressure illegal immigrants – his family had problems with the old hotel where they previously settled. But last Saturday, all 140 migrants were forcibly evacuated from Astor.
“I think it’s a kidnapping. Maybe it’s for extortion, I don’t know. I can’t judge. God will judge but my little girl has nothing to do with it. I don’t want any more problems with anyone. I love my family,” said the boy’s father. Miguel Alvarez later said that Cataleia was mistaken for another child and abducted by mistake. He admitted that he might.
Florence police searched the hotel building from top to bottom, but found neither her nor her traces. Italian law enforcement officials state that the chances of finding Cataleya alive are decreasing day by day.
According to the news of the Italian newspaper Ansa, the last statement of the girl’s father may shed light on the abduction. He was able to recall several events that had occurred in the last two or three months at the hotel, which was illegally occupied by immigrants. The essence of these events was not disclosed, but Miguel Alvarez testified to the prosecutor for about an hour.
Meanwhile, a video began to circulate on local social networks in which Kataleya said that she wanted to visit her family, allegedly misses her mother and asks for help. “If anyone sees my kidnappers, contact the police. I hope this video will speed up my recovery because every second counts,” says the voice on the recording. It quickly became clear that the voice was mechanically synthesized and the request for help was fake, most likely generated using a neural network.
La Repubblica states that the first illegal immigrants took over the Astor hotel in September last year, and then 54 families with 19 children settled there, mostly from Peru and other Latin American countries. However, over time, the number of slums increased, and with it, crime in the area increased. In the neighborhoods adjacent to the hotel, incidents of violence have increased severalfold. And the locals are not surprised by the kidnapping – according to them, many criminal elements revolve around immigrants who do not shy away from extortion.
One of the illegal immigrants, named Manuel, told the newspaper that “an atmosphere of violence and chaos prevails” in Astor, which was occupied by the invaders. He fled Ecuador to Italy in 2012. According to Manuel, there were many violent perpetrators among the outlaws who threatened others with violence. An unpleasant incident happened to him in May of this year, as a result of which he was thrown from the balcony of the third floor and broke his arm.
According to the preliminary research, it was determined that the child was left alone for a long time. On June 10, the criminals had at least 1 hour and 45 minutes to abduct Kataleya. Florence police promised to soon review all footage from 1,500 security cameras in the city to try to trace the route of the intruders.