05/24/2024 – 17:53
Almost three months after the disappearance of lawyer Anic de Almeida Peixoto Herdy, aged 54, the Civil Police still have no clues as to her whereabouts. Four suspects have already been arrested, but they deny any involvement. Anic disappeared in the late morning of February 29, shortly after leaving a shopping mall in Petrópolis, in the mountainous region of Rio, on foot.
Researchers work with different hypotheses. The main line of investigation is that the lawyer was kidnapped by Lourival Correa Netto Fadiga, who was the family’s trusted man. Lourival and three other people have been arrested since March, accused of extortion through kidnapping.
Who is Anic de Almeida Peixoto Herdy
The lawyer and Psychology student has been married for two decades to Benjamin Cordeiro Herdy, 78 years old. Benjamin is heir to a family that owned an important educational group in Rio. The couple lives in Petrópolis, in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro.
When was she last seen
Images from the monitoring circuit of a shopping mall in Petrópolis show the moment Anic parks the car in the parking lot. It is also possible to see that she exchanges messages on her cell phone. Minutes later, a camera outside the shopping center captures the lawyer crossing a street. After that, she was not seen again.
Ransom payment
On the same day as Anic’s disappearance, Benjamin Cordeiro Herdy received messages from one of the cell phones used by the woman. The texts demanded a ransom payment totaling R$4.6 million. The messages also advised that the family home was being monitored in real time and that no one should call the police. The ransom demanded by the kidnappers was paid in the following days, through bank transfers and cash withdrawals.
When the police were called
The Petrópolis Civil Police were only called two weeks after the disappearance. By that time, the ransom had already been paid. The agents were informed of the disappearance after a complaint from a daughter, who recorded a conversation between Benjamin and Lourival.
How the police reached the accused
Investigators had access to the phones of everyone involved and cross-referenced location data from the day of the kidnapping and the payment of ransoms. As shown by the Fantastic, from TV Globo, it was possible to prove that Lourival was not in a favela to supposedly pay the criminals – but rather in a dealership in Barra da Tijuca, west zone of Rio. There, he bought a pickup truck valued at R$ 500 thousand and a motorbike. He also acquired 950 cell phones, which were taken to a family store.
Who are the accused
The Rio Civil Police investigation indicted four people. Lourival Correa Netto Fadiga is accused of being the mastermind of the crime. In addition to them, a couple of children and a woman, who would be Lourival’s lover, also respond as accomplices. The children were at the dealership with their father, and the woman even traveled to Foz do Iguaçu, in Paraná, to resolve issues related to the acquisition of cell phones. The three would also have helped to hide the ransom amounts.
O Estadão was unable to locate the defense of the accused.
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