‘Venezuelan Baby Reindeer’ arrested in Spain
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Spanish police have arrested a Venezuelan woman and her brother accused of stalking dozens of women in her home country in a case echoing the Netflix hit series Baby Reindeer.
Rebeca García, 33, and her brother, Francisco, were detained in a supermarket in Madrid on Monday after being recognised by other Venezuelan citizens a week after her case went viral in South America.
Her alleged stalking emerged after the autobiographical Netflix series – written by and starring Scottish actor Richard Gadd – prompted several women in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, to post about their own traumatic experiences.
They allege that Ms García had become obsessed with them, following them in the street, contacting them repeatedly, and behaving in bizarre and threatening ways, but the police refused to take their claims seriously because of the perpetrator’s gender.
Spanish media have nicknamed her the “Venezuelan Baby Reindeer”.
One alleged victim, Claudia Aguirrezabal, accused Ms García of writing her a sexually-explicit book of more than 500 pages and, on another occasion, breaking into her apartment block and sending her a message saying: “The killer is inside the house.”
‘I am going to kill them’
In another email, Ms Aguirrezabal claimed on Instagram, Ms García had threatened her friends, writing: “If somebody is touching you, I am going to kill them as that is disrespectful to us and our relationship.”
She added that although she went to the same school as Ms García they were five years apart and the pair did not actually know each other.
Ms Aguirrezabal is one of several women who have been complaining to the police in Caracas about Ms García since at least 2019. But they were ignored, they say, based on the sexist fallacy that women do not stalk other women.
But the official response changed overnight last week after the social media allegations from multiple women against Ms García went viral. That prompted Venezuela’s attorney general Tarek William Saab to request her extradition from Spain.
Meanwhile, local police in Caracas raided the house she shared with her brother, Mr Saab said.
