A social media influencer from Portimão, known online as Mia, has been arrested by the Polícia Judiciária (PJ) on suspicion of commissioning the kidnapping of an online follower from Espinho, in the Aveiro district.
The 26-year-old is accused of hiring another one of her fans, from Santa Maria da Feira, to seize the man and force him to hand back €3,500 she believed she was owed. That second suspect, the hired kidnapper, aged 28, was also detained. Both have been taken before the Criminal Investigation Court (Tribunal de Instrução Criminal), which will decide on coercive measures.
According to information gathered by journalists at the Jornal de Notícias newspaper, the woman is a streamer, someone who broadcasts live in return for paid interaction from viewers. She met the alleged victim through social media. Over the course of this year the two kept in regular digital contact until, in the PJ’s words, they “decided to book a holiday together, splitting the costs”, with the man making the reservations and paying for them.
The sum at stake was €3,500, for a trip to Greece. “Following a disagreement, the suspect then demanded that he return the money she had transferred to him, which proved impossible because the fare was non-refundable,” the PJ said.
It was that refusal, it is believed, that convinced the influencer she had been swindled by her follower, and she resolved to recover the money, by force if necessary. She is alleged to have enlisted the help of the kidnapper, himself an online content creator, to “lure the victim to a meeting with the aim of compelling him to return the sum”.
On 17 July, the young man from Feira travelled to Espinho and found the victim with a friend. Brandishing a firearm, he forced both men into a car and drove them around the streets of Gaia for roughly an hour. “During that time, he demanded that one of the victims hand over a sum in the order of thousands of euros, which the suspect, who lives in Portimão, considered herself owed,” the PJ said.
The scheme unravelled when a police car approached the car, sending the gunman fleeing. After a complaint was filed, PJ inspectors began investigating, subsequently identifying and locating both suspects, who were arrested in Portimão and Santa Maria da Feira.
Source: JN
Photo credit: TikTok / miasecondacc_
