'Caught In The Web: The Murder Behind Zona Divas' Explained: What Happens To Soni And Tony?

The 2024 Netflix documentary series from Mexico, Caught in the Web: The Murder Behind Zona Divas, takes audiences for a deep dive into the dark and criminal side of the internet, where seemingly harmless websites are linked to violent secrets. The four-part series follows one such website, named Zona Divas, which was touted as just a website that helped sex workers find clients online, and its shady downfall after five women linked to it were found murdered all over Mexico City. Caught in the Web is often a chilling and devastating watch, as it reflects on the vulnerability and the lack of safety for many women in the South American continent, which sets them up for a life full of exploitation and unfair judgment.

What was the Zona Divas website?

First opened around 2010, the Zona Divas website was basically a dark and immoral marketplace for escorts, where anyone could browse through the profiles of escorts and contact them. Although the actions involved in the running of Zona Divas were definitely extremely immoral and arguably harmful to society, its founders and owners, two Mexican men popularly known as Soni and Tony, were confident that they were not doing anything illegal. In a podcast where he answered some questions about his profession and website, Soni stated that they worked in compliance with Mexican law and that they only wanted to make the lives of both escorts and clients a bit easier through the miracles of technology. According to the official rules and statements, any woman wanting to post about themselves on Zona Divas would first have to write an email to the admin, who would then reply and ask them to send photographs of themselves along with personal details. The woman would also have to pay a specific sum of money as a sort of membership fee, the amount of which depended on which page of the website she wanted her profile to be displayed on. The first few pages obviously cost the most, as they received the most traffic, while the last ones naturally cost the least.

Zona Divas also made each of the women sign a contract before their profiles were uploaded on the website, which categorically made them agree that no sexual exploitation was involved and that they would never be forced into any arrangement. They would then be accepted into the program and taken to photographers for shoots for the website, and their profiles would be put up on the website. These profiles typically mentioned a name, a profession, where the escort was from, and their physical measurements. Their phone numbers were also included, and they received calls regarding the work on their own, without any further involvement from Zona Divas. According to the official terms of the website, the professional agreement between the site and the women was simply that of publicity, meaning that they were only charging the women for the advertising space on their website and for nothing else. There were naturally questions about whether the website itself was being used to run a prostitution ring, and the likes of Soni always claimed that these concerns were baseless, for the only role of Zona Divas was in publicity.

However, behind all this jargon of legalities and contracts, the Zona Divas website was involved in some extremely shady and criminal dealings. To begin with, most of the women with profiles on the website came from neighboring South American countries, meaning that Zona Divas was taking advantage of the desperation of those who wanted to flee their troubled nations in search of a better life. Most of these women were actually recruited in their home countries, as they were promised honest and legal work like having to clean, cook, or take care of children, and brought to Mexico. It was only upon their entry into Mexico that they were told that they had to work as escorts, and there was hardly any chance for the women to turn down the traffickers now. Firstly, most of them were given the money for tickets to Mexico City by their recruiters, who then claimed that money was owed to them. Therefore, when the helpless women were told that they had to sell their bodies, they were also reminded about the money that they had to pay back. Their passports were taken away, and so was their ability to freely move around, as the women were always driven around by a fixed driver and only to hotels where they had to meet clients. Along with being exploited physically, they also had to face financial extortion through rent and charges for food and other amenities. The whole situation turned out to be a nasty web of lies created only to take advantage of their desperation, but the full extent of Zona Divas’ illegalities was yet to be discovered.

Who were the victims of the horrific murders?

Caught in the Web presents accounts of women who managed to somehow survive the worst crimes that they could have been subjected to while working with Zona Divas, which makes the stories of those who experienced this worst version all the more harrowing. Brenda and Candice were both in extreme financial duress when they were first contacted by recruiters in their native countries of Argentina and Colombia, respectively. Brenda actually made contact with a scout named Silvia after she learned from her hairdresser that the woman was helping young women earn thousands of dollars. Brenda admits that she had an idea about the work that would be involved when she signed up to be a part of the Zona Divas website, and she somehow managed to stay out of trouble throughout her time. She eventually left the website and the profession and now has no regrets or guilt for having once been associated with them, since difficulties in life had forced her into it. 

Candice, however, had no idea about what was going to happen to her, and she had made contact with her recruiter through a mutual friend who hailed from Venezuela. Upon arriving in Mexico City, Candice had already accrued debts in her name for the transportation costs and also the expenses involved in getting her photographs clicked for the website. Thus, she could not really refuse to work as an escort, and her struggles began. She was put up in an apartment with a number of other women, and they were not allowed to roam around freely or even do anything other than what the Zona Divas owners wanted them to do. Candice and her roommates eventually realized that although they were being made to sleep on bunk beds and each of them was being charged 7,000 pesos for the accommodation, the rent of the entire apartment was just 10,000 pesos. The rest of the money was being swiped by the ones running this whole business, and this was when Candice decided to quit by any means necessary. Before she accrued any more debt, the woman and her roommates paid off their personal debts and quit Mexico City.

A few other women were not as lucky or quick to react, though, just like Wendy Cortes, who had to leave her home and family in Caracas, Venezuela, because of the extremely dire situation in the country. A massive food shortage was gripping Venezuela, turning the citizens hostile against each other, and Wendy had to leave during this time to provide for her family. She moved to Mexico without telling her mother and got involved with the Zona Divas racket, along with a close friend named Daniela. The two young women were tricked into sextortion, and even when they paid off their initial debts and wanted to escape, the group wanted more money from them and forced them to stay put in the profession. Wendy made a few more attempts to leave later on as well, but she could not make it, and the woman was last seen checking in at a hotel to meet a client. The next day, Wendy’s body was discovered in the hotel room, where she had been strangled to death by the man who had brought her there.

Another woman from Venezuela named Genesis wanted to become a professional model when she was found by a Zona Divas recruiter and sent to Mexico City. Genesis did not particularly mind working as an escort since the profession was bringing her lots of money quickly, so she planned to help her family and provide a good life for her daughter. After a few months in the profession, having earned enough to buy a new house for her family, Genesis had a small disagreement with her family, who wanted her to step away from the dangerous job. She still wanted to continue a bit longer, but tragedy befell Genesis when she also met with the same fate as Wendy, for her dead body was found in a hotel room where she had checked in the night before with a client.

Karen, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, had always had a passionate dream of being in the entertainment industry as a dancer, and she had grabbed the limelight in her city after posing naked in protest against the government. Because of their interest in working in the entertainment media, Karen and a close friend of hers were scouted by some human traffickers and offered to work at an adult club in the Mexican city of Playa del Carmen. Although the two young women agreed to the work and traveled to Mexico for it, they quickly discovered that it was just a sham for exploitation and extortion. Karen was also being held hostage by them, but she and her friend managed to escape to Mexico City, incidentally with the help of Brenda. Karen then joined Zona Divas and became roommates with Genesis before realizing the extent of the criminality that her employers were involved in. She even told her mother about how someone was blackmailing her, but before any steps could be taken, Karen was found dead in a hotel room as well. 

One of the worst effects of such a life spent in sextortion is that most women who leave end up in the same profession even if they can escape their current employers, simply because society does not accept them back. Therefore, they often start their own businesses and agencies in prostitution, and a Colombian woman named Andreina had done exactly so after she left Zona Divas. Andreina had experienced a man brutally assault her and threaten to kill her during her time with the Zona Divas website, and she later tried to start her own agency instead of working through Zona Divas. In clear retaliation against her action, Andreina was shot dead in her car on a highway just outside of Mexico City.

The fifth victim of the brutal murders was a Colombian woman named Kenni, who had come to Mexico City to be able to afford the expensive medicines required for her mother’s treatment. Kenni met with a number of the other women who were eventually murdered, and she feared the same fate for herself. Her family was particularly concerned when she made a new boyfriend, who never showed his face in any of the photographs. The boyfriend turned out to be a professional hitman who started to blackmail and torture Kenni as well, but her mother and sisters could do nothing to save her. Ultimately, Kenni was kidnapped, tortured for hours, and then killed, with her body dumped in an alley in Mexico City.

Could the perpetrators behind the grisly murders be caught?

The most unfortunate and also irksome part about the experience of watching Caught in the Web is learning about the ineptitude and late reactions of the police force to do anything significant against the perpetrators, despite their best efforts. After all, Mexico has notoriously high levels of corruption in terms of law and order, and most crimes committed by gangs and cartels go unpunished because the said gangs have strong contacts with the authorities. Ignacio Santoyo ‘Soni,’ the man who co-founded the Zona Divas website, had earlier been arrested in 2007 for a similar website that was heavily involved in sex trafficking. As he managed to get free in a couple of years, Soni and his associates then changed their modus operandi and opened the Zona Divas website, posing purely as a publicity website, whereas they were essentially running a devilish sex racket. Soni was arrested in 2019 on charges of human trafficking and sexual extortion, but the case against him did not ultimately stand, and he is now a free man.

A young man named Daniel was arrested for the murder of Genesis based on camera footage from the hotel and the testimony of a driver who had taken the two to the hotel. Ultimately, Daniel was found guilty of the crime and was sentenced to eighty years in prison. In the case of Genesis and all the other women, it was their wish to stop working for Zona Divas that led to their deaths, as hitmen like Daniel were hired to murder them. Another such hitman, Bryan Mauricio, known as ‘El Pozoles’, was also clearly involved, as he had possibly killed some of the other women, but no solid proof could be found by the police at the time. However, a girlfriend he had made from among the escorts, Kenni, had documented evidence of his abuse and crimes on her personal phone, and this clever act of the woman ultimately came in useful for the authorities. Mauricio was finally arrested on charges of drug smuggling and on suspicion of murder, although he is yet to be sentenced. As Caught in the Web reminds us that, in the end, despite all these horrific crimes, Soni still remains free and has seemingly started a different website like the now-shut-down Zona Divas. It is highly likely that he is running the same prostitution racket as before, and the condition of women still remains as bad as ever. 

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