Luciana Curtis: Model and daughter of British businessman kidnapped in Brazil alongside husband and child

Luciana, her husband Henrique Gendre and their 11-year-old son were taken as they left the Alto do Lapa restaurant in Sao Paulo. Armed robbers, who held the family in a shack for around 12 hours , demanded their car and access to their bank accounts.

Authorities were alerted after the couple’s eldest child became worried that the family had never returned home. They were released by the terrifying gang after the police launched a search for the family.

The model, who has worked with the likes of Beyonce, and her family had been trapped in the cramped shack in Brasilandia, one of Sao Paulo’s 96 districts, overnight. The shack was filled with just a mattress, toilet and sink.

A spokesperson for Luciana confirmed the situation. They said: “The family has been released and they are safe and well.”

Local police said in a statement: “The armed criminals approached the victims outside a restaurant and took them captive. During the search by specialist police teams, the gang abandoned the family and fled.”

Luciana, 53, is daughter of British businessman Malcolm Leo Curtis but was born in Sao Paulo to a Brazilian mother, Katia Maria Furtado de Mendonca Curtis. She has models for the likes of L’Oreal, H&M and Victoria’s Secret after beginning her modelling career at the age of 14. She married photographer Henrique Gendre in 2003.