Kriti Mehrotra
When five foreign escorts affiliated with the same online network in Mexico lost their lives within a single year — from February 2017 to February 2018 — it shook the community to its core. After all, as explored in Netflix’s ‘Caught in the Web: The Murders Behind Zona Divas,’ almost every single one of them had essentially been tortured before their lives were snatched away. Only two of these five cases have been solved as of writing, with Daniel Uribe Reyes having been arrested, tried, convicted as well as sentenced for his offenses, yet true justice has still not been served.
Daniel Uribe Reyes is an Alleged Unión Tepito Cartel Member
Although not many details regarding Daniel Uribe Reyes’ early years or introduction to the world of organized crime have ever been made public, it is believed he joined the inherently violent Unión Tepito at a young age. That’s how he was purportedly gradually able to establish a name for himself within the syndicate as trusted personnel for the dirty work, resulting in him serving as an extorter and a hitman. As per the aforementioned original, Zona Divas had managed to build a rapport with this cartel back when the latter had initially asked them for $100,000 just to operate in Mexico City without any issues from their side, and that’s how he likely became involved too.
According to an anonymous retired escort, several of them had misgivings about Daniel from the start because he was always around, but they had no idea whether he was from the agency or not. “He knew people at all the hotels we used,” she candidly said in the docu-series. “[It was strange to have] someone so young who knew everyone at the hotels, who had so much money, and always seemed to know every move we made. If we went out somewhere, he always knew about it. We don’t know how, but he kept tabs on all of us.” It turns out he ostensibly often used to be tasked with securing funds from escorts when they were late on their payments to Zona Divas, yet it is still unclear precisely who his real employer was.
Daniel Uribe Reyes Allegedly Tortured His Victims Before Killing Them
Daniel’s first victim was reportedly 26-year-old Venezuelan native Wendy Vaneska Delima Cortes, whom he raped and killed in Hotel Principe in the Escandón neighborhood on February 4, 2017. As per one of the latter’s friends, he was the last person to see her alive since he had actually invited her to the lodging pretending to be a client, only to pounce the second she stepped into the room. “We do not know if he hurt Wendy on orders from the agency or because she wanted to go back to Venezuela,” she said. “We have no idea.” However, what has since been ratified through DNA evidence, security footage, and his own handwriting from when he registered a room for them under an alias is that he positively killed her.
As if that’s not enough, while the investigation into Wendy’s homicide was still ongoing, Daniel took the life of his second known victim on November 17, 2017, in the Platino Hotel in Venustiano Carranza. According to the show, 24-year-old Venezuelan escort Genesis Yuliani Gibson Jaimes had actually managed to leave Zona Divas behind, yet she was seemingly still working independently and had been picked up by him in Puebla under the pretense of the same. Little did she know that once they settled down in the room he had booked, he would physically assault her, tie her up, and stab her several times with a sharp weapon before suffocating her to death.
Daniel Uribe Reyes is Serving His Sentence Behind Bars
Daniel’s long-term driver at the time honestly played a significant role in linking him to Genesis’ murder, which was then only helped by actual evidence from the scene as well as local security footage. Therefore, following a jury trial, he was found guilty of slaying both Wendy and Genesis as a probable hitman, resulting in him receiving 34 years plus 45 years for his respective offenses in early 2019. Since then, a still tight-lipped Daniel has been serving his consecutive terms at a state prison – we say tight-lipped because he has never revealed any details of either of these murders on his own or revealed if he was a hitman and who had hired him to kill these women.
Read More: Brayan “El Pozoles” Miranda González: Where is Kenni Finol’s Ex-Boyfriend Now?
