I first got on Gloria and Sergio\u2019s trail shortly after returning from Africa, where I\u2019d been searching for a Philadelphia file clerk who had disappeared from his job only to pop up, months later, deep in the jungle as one of the leaders of a rebel band fighting to overthrow Congo\u2019s dictator.
\n\u201cThe Clerk Who Would Be King\u201d was one of the strangest stories I\u2019d ever covered and among the toughest to report. I had to track this guy from an apartment in North Philadelphia halfway around the planet and into a part of Africa known as the \u201cHeart of Darkness.\u201d I finally located him and got him to tell me his bizarre tale. The second he was done I thanked him, snapped my notebook shut, and headed for the first flight outta there before the country erupted into war again. When I got home and began catching up with the rest of the world, a message was waiting for me from my former college girlfriend, now a reporter in Mexico:
\nYou see Trevi out there? Sort of kidding. Sort of not.<\/p>\n
I called her right away. \u201cIs that still going on?\u201d I asked. \u201cHuge,\u201d she replied. \u201cInterpol has a worldwide arrest warrant out for them: Detain on Sight.\u201d I heard keys tapping on the other end of the line, and then she said, \u201cCheck your email.\u201d
\nI opened it up, and there they were: Gloria and Sergio, staring out from a police advisory. It seemed impossible, like turning on the TV and seeing Jay-Z and Beyonce featured as fugitives on America\u2019s Most Wanted. I was stunned to discover that the story was not only alive but wilder than ever. It had escalated into a vanishing act so bizarre that a seasoned Latin America correspondent was asking, at least half seriously, if I\u2019d picked up on any Gloria Trevi sightings in the African outback.
\nAfter we got off the phone, I reached out to an El Paso detective I\u2019d met on assignment years ago and he brought me up to speed on the search along the border. \u201cForget the criminal case,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy isn\u2019t there more urgency to find out if they\u2019re even alive? You know how a lot of these cults turn out \u2013 in a pile of bodies. It\u2019s crazy that for months it wasn\u2019t even a priority to check on the safety of those girls. They\u2019ve been gone so long now, we don\u2019t know where to start looking.\u201d\u00a0
\nThat was all I needed to hear. I called an editor I knew at The New York Times Magazine and made my pitch: If I could run to earth a missing file clerk in Congo, how hard could finding an attention-hungry celebrity be? The police were hampered by all kinds of jurisdictional restrictions, I argued, but none of that applied to me. I could go anywhere and follow any lead without waiting for anyone\u2019s permission. It wouldn\u2019t be easy, but if I started right away, I could be in position when the net began to close around them.
\nOne hour later, I was part of the hunt.
\n***
\n\u201cGangster sperm!\u201d the lawyer repeated.
\n\u201cI\u2019m aware of the story,\u201d the warden said drily, as he pivoted his gaze toward me. \u201cAnd the source.\u201d<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t exactly true. Yes, I\u2019d broken the gangster-sperm story for The New York Times. But technically, the source was a confidential police file I\u2019d been given by a contact in Brazil. My scoop spread like crazy, making headlines around the world and forcing Brazilian law enforcement into the humiliating position of grimly repeating \u201cWe can neither confirm nor deny.\u201d They couldn\u2019t deny the story, of course, because one key fact was impossible to hide and growing bigger by the day:
\nGloria was pregnant.
\nCall it a mystery, call it a miracle, but somehow the Mexican Madonna had lived up to her nickname by conceiving a baby behind bars despite being locked for months inside the all-female wing of a maximum security prison.
\nGloria refused to reveal the father. Her lawyers implied she\u2019d been raped. Prison guards were swiftly lined up for questioning, but after interrogations and lie detector tests, all of them reportedly were cleared of suspicion. Secretly, investigators were now pursuing a new angle-and that\u2019s what made my story so explosive. Gloria, they surmised, had artificially inseminated herself with semen smuggled to her from another prisoner, using a homemade syringe fashioned from a ball-point pen.
\n\u201cSee? That\u2019s what they\u2019re saying about Brazil on the front page of the most important newspaper in the world,\u201d the lawyer said.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s what he is saying.\u201d The warden tried to fix me with an icy glare, but the dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes just made him look sad. \u201cAnd that is why I can\u2019t allow him access to interview Miss Trevi.\u201d
\n\u201cNo,\u201d the lawyer said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly why you should.\u201d Once again, the warden and I were united in shared confusion. How exactly does letting a writer for The New York Times into your prison result in fewer articles for The New York Times about your prison? But I knew by now that if anyone was capable of pulling this off, it was attorney Geraldo Magela. I was amazed he\u2019d gotten us this far. I was amazed he was even trying. After all, he wasn\u2019t my lawyer.
\nHe was Gloria\u2019s.
\nGeraldo had a reputation as a legal wizard, a guy with a knack for conjuring magical exits from impossible predicaments\u2014or at least, that\u2019s what he told me when I first called him late one Sunday on his personal cell in Rio de Janeiro. \u201cHow\u2019d you get this number?\u201d he demanded.
\nI debated how to answer. I wasn\u2019t going to lie and he wouldn\u2019t like the truth. The fact is, I knew that on Sunday nights the Associated Press offices in foreign countries are staffed by rookies. There\u2019s almost never any breaking news on weekends but a million soccer league scores to upload, so new hires always get that grunt-work shift. I waited till about 10 p.m. one Sunday, then called the Rio bureau and told the guy who answered that I was from AP Lisbon (not with, so technically true), and needed the personal number for Gloria Trevi\u2019s lead attorney, stat. I figured the rookie reporter would be so overworked and frazzled, he\u2019d rather make a senior correspondent happy than ask anyone if he was allowed to.
\nMinutes later, the entire Gloria file popped up in my inbox.\u00a0
\nI didn\u2019t know how much of this to tell Geraldo, but before I could open my mouth, he cut me off. \u201cYou know what? Good for you,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have your methods, I have mine. Let\u2019s leave it at that.\u201d
\nGeraldo was chatty and charming, and more than happy to share anything about himself but nothing about his imprisoned pop star client. I pushed my credentials \u2013 I\u2019m fluent in Spanish and Portuguese after years as a war correspondent for the Associated Press and I write for a magazine with a huge international audience \u2013 but Geraldo was a steel fortress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping Brazil will set her free instead of sending her to Mexico in chains,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo until that is resolved, she\u2019s not saying a word.\u201d
\nI thought that was the end of the road. But soon after I published my story about the Gangster Sperm investigation, Geraldo called me out of the blue. It was nearly ten at night, and I wouldn\u2019t have picked up if I hadn\u2019t recognized the Rio de Janeiro area code on my cell phone.
\n\u201cGloria\u2019s life is in danger,\u201d Geraldo blurted.
\nBrazilian law enforcement was so scandalized by the rumors surrounding her pregnancy, he claimed, that they\u2019d do anything to make the whole thing disappear. As a safeguard against any \u201caccidents,\u201d Geraldo decided it was time to get her story out in the open. I could have the exclusive, but I had to get to Brazil right away. Gloria was due to give birth soon, and she\u2019d just been transferred to a secure hospital ward. No Brazilian prison would ever let a reporter inside its walls, but maybe the hospital would.
\n\u201cThis is our only chance,\u201d Geraldo urged.
\nBuuuuutttt \u2026 there was a hitch. The prison hospital was deep inland in the hard-to-reach city of Brasilia, and in five days, the whole country would shut down for a full week during the massive street festivals of Carnaval. By the time government offices reopened, Gloria might already have delivered her baby and been returned to prison, or\u2014as Geraldo put it\u2013 \u201cbeen eliminated as a problem.\u201d
\nAs soon as I hung up with Geraldo, I started dialing. It was Monday night. Carnaval would begin on Friday. That gave me two days, max, to plane, train, and automobile all 4,230 miles to Brasilia from our farm in Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania. Booking a flight would be rough, I knew, since they\u2019d all be crammed with partiers heading to Rio. This was going to be a nail-biter.<\/p>\n
After trying every airline that services Brazil, the best I could manage was standby on a flight leaving at 7 p.m. the next evening out of New York. The sooner I got to the airport the higher I\u2019d be on the waiting list, so I hastily packed a bag, left a message for my editor at The New York Times, and set off before dawn on the thirty-mile drive to catch the first train to Manhattan. By 1 p.m., I had made it to JFK airport and hunkered down for six hours of suspense.
\nJust after five o\u2019clock, I heard my name called. I leaped to my feet and hurried to the United desk.
\n\u201cHmmm,\u201d the agent said, flipping through my passport. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of stamps in here. I\u2019m having trouble finding your visa.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s okay,\u201d I replied. \u201cI\u2019ll get one in the airport when I arrive.\u201d
\nShe stopped searching the pages and looked up at me. \u201cYou know it doesn\u2019t work that way, right?\u201d
\n\u201cNo, I\u2019m sure it does.\u201d I was about to list the places where I\u2019d gotten visas on arrival\u2014Angola, Kenya, El Salvador, Mozambique, Burundi, Congo, Uganda\u2014but a sickening realization dawned on me before I opened my mouth. I\u2019d traveled to all those countries on reporting assignments when they were in the midst of extreme upheaval or outright war. In fact, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d traveled anywhere in the past seven or eight years that wasn\u2019t either visa-free or under fire.
\n\u201cBesides,\u201d the agent continued, \u201cyou don\u2019t have room left in your passport. The pages are all full.\u201d
\nI continued pleading my case\u2014I need this for work! I\u2019ll go straight to the embassy in Rio for a new passport! And a visa! \u2014but the agent kept waving forward the people behind me and issuing them the last available seats. \u201cWe can put you back on standby for tomorrow night\u2019s flight,\u201d she offered. \u201cBut first you have to sort out your visa and passport.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I left the airport and taxied to a friend\u2019s apartment in Manhattan. I had a make-or-break decision and decided on a gamble. There was no way I\u2019d ever navigate the jam-packed New York City passport office for fresh pages in time to reach the Brazilian consulate before it closed at noon, so my only hope was to persuade them to squeeze the visa onto the corner of a page that was nearly full. The next morning, I was outside the consulate at 7 a.m., two hours before opening. Already, a line of Carnaval travelers was stretching down the block. When I finally reached the window, I had my argument rehearsed and ready. They needed to give me a visa, even if it meant overlapping on a couple of other passport stamps, because I wasn\u2019t just some tourist: I was a credentialed journalist covering a breaking story.
\n\u201cOh, well, that\u2019s different,\u201d the consulate staffer agreed. \u201cIn that case, you\u2019ll need a temporary work visa, which requires a letter from your employer to our Department of State. And besides,\u201d he added, \u201cyou don\u2019t have enough space in your passport. We need a completely blank page.\u201d
\n10:27 a.m. I bolted out of the consulate and taxied across town to the Manhattan passport office, the largest and busiest in the country. When I entered, the waiting room looked like a giant gymnasium after a natural disaster, with throngs of dispirited people huddled on seats and long lines that never seemed to move. No way I\u2019d even reach a window before closing.
\nI took a deep breath and walked all the way across the room, ignoring the hundreds of eyes watching me pass. \u201cExcuse me,\u201d I said to the guy at the front of a line I\u2019d chosen at random. I handed my passport through to the clerk. \u201cGabe said to add new pages to this one.\u201d
\n\u201cGabe?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, that\u2019s what he said. Extra pages. Right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The clerk flipped through my passport. \u201cWho\u2019d you say? Gabe?\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d
\n\u201cLet me check.\u201d
\nI leaned an elbow on the counter, acting like I nine-to-fived there every day, wondering what the penalty was for Fabricating a Fake Federal Officer Named Gabe. Criminal charges? Passport confiscation? Or just a get-your-lyin\u2019-ass-outta-here? Five minutes later, I had my answer.
\n\u201cHere you go,\u201d the clerk said, handing back my newly thickened passport. Gabe, wherever and whoever he was, had just done me a massive favor. I ran out to the street, flagged a cab, and sped back to the Brazilian consulate. Thirty-seven minutes to go. The lines were still crazy long, but I couldn\u2019t even attempt to cut this time because there were only two clerks and one of them now knew I was a journalist. No Gabe could help me now. I got to the end of the second line and inched along, angling my body away from the clerk who could out me.
\nAt 11:57, I was the last to reach the window. The clerk skimmed my paperwork. \u201cTourist?\u201d he asked.
\n\u201cYes, sir.\u201d I half whispered, afraid the other clerk might recognize my voice.
\n\u201cCan I see your airline ticket?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m standby.\u201d
\n\u201cSo you have no proof of your return flight?\u201d
\n\u201cWell \u2026 \u201c I thought desperately. \u201cNot proof proof, but you can see from my passport that I travel a lot. For pleasure! I\u2019m not trying to relocate anywhere. Just Carnaval and then it\u2019s right back home.\u201d
\nHe glanced at his watch. \u201cYou might have to\u2014\u201d He mumbled something I couldn\u2019t catch, clearly done with all of us last-minute party planners cutting into his lunch hour so we could dance in Rio while he was stuck in an office. I took a seat next to a raucous gang of vacationers, trying to blend in and remain invisible. It didn\u2019t matter because one by one, travelers were called to collect their passports and go, leaving me exposed.
\nSuddenly, a very large security guard materialized by my side. I hadn\u2019t seen him approach because I\u2019d kept my face toward the wall. \u201cMr. McDougall?\u201d he said. I hesitated, won-dering whether the smart move was just to deny it and get out of there before I found myself calling a lawyer from a holding cell for lying on sworn travel documents. The security guard pointed toward the window, where the clerk was waving my passport.
\n\u201cBom viagem,\u201d\u00a0 he called. \u201cEnjoy your trip.\u201d
\nEven though it was nearly 1 p.m. and I hadn\u2019t eaten all day, I headed straight for the subway and returned to JFK to get back on the standby list. Six hours later, I was taking off for Brazil, never so happy in my life to be crammed into a middle seat in the back of a plane for a twelve-hour fight. I made it to Brasilia with twenty-four hours to spare, but despite every-thing it took to get there, I still had one dealbreaker demand:\u00a0
\n\u201cThe interview has to be just me and Gloria,\u201d I told Geraldo. \u201cI can\u2019t have you in the room massaging her answers. Even if you keep quiet, it\u2019s just not acceptable to have you stage-managing the conversation.\u201d
\nSurprisingly, Geraldo agreed. But he did have a condition of his own. \u201cWhen we get to the hospital, don\u2019t tell any-one you speak Portuguese,\u201d he said. \u201cThe warden and I both speak English. Keep your ears open and your Portuguese to yourself.\u201d
\nIt was a weird request but an easy one to grant. Only later, when things got crazy, would I discover what Geraldo was up to.<\/p>\n
***
\n\u201cI can\u2019t keep having these wild stories flying around about Miss Trevi,\u201d the warden was telling us, pushing aside all the documents Geraldo had submitted on my behalf as a sign it was time for us to exit his office. \u201cMaybe we can revisit this after the situation quiets down.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019ll get slaughtered that way,\u201d Geraldo retorted. \u201cHow do you put out a fire? Do you feed it one log at a time? Or do you dump on all the logs and let it blaze out for good? Remember what the Bible tells us: When the wood runs out, the fire dies.\u201d
\nGeraldo turned to me. \u201cProverbs. You can look it up.\u201d
\nTo the warden he said, \u201cOne last article. We let The New York Times weigh in with one big story, then the wood is gone and the rumors die out.\u201d
\nThe warden wasn\u2019t buying it. He and Geraldo were still arguing when three men in black uniforms with no insignia appeared in the door. One flipped open a federal government ID, then squared his hands on his hips, pushing back his jacket to reveal the pistol holstered on his waist. He barely glanced at me and Geraldo and instead focused all his bristling intensity on the warden.
\n\u201cWe need an extraction of amniotic fluid from Trevi,\u201d the Man in Black said. \u201cDon\u2019t tell her what it\u2019s for. Just get it and give it to us. We need verifiable DNA on the child before it\u2019s born.\u201d
\n\u201cAy ya!\u201d Geraldo leaped to his feet again. \u201cAy ya! Absolutely not! That\u2019s unconstitutional! It\u2019s an invasion of her privacy.\u201d
\n\u201cYou want an invasion?\u201d the officer said. I don\u2019t know if he thought Geraldo and I were hospital staff, but he couldn\u2019t care less. \u201cI\u2019ve got a van full of men outside. We\u2019ll take this place by force if we have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cell phones appeared all around. Geraldo had several Supreme Court justices on his speed dial. The warden, shaken, called the health minister who oversaw the prison medical unit. I couldn\u2019t hear who the Man in Black was talking to because he kept his hand cupped around his mouth.
\n\u201cHa!\u201d Geraldo yelled. He handed his phone to the Man in Black. He listened for a moment, grunted a reply, then slapped the phone back into Geraldo\u2019s hand and led his two partners out.
\nThe court had granted a stay.
\n\u201cOh! Deus! Meu!\u201d Geraldo moaned. \u201cOh. My. God!\u201d
\nThe warden quietly finished his own call, then hung up and slumped back in his chair. He raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. \u201cOkay,\u201d he told Geraldo in Portuguese. \u201cWe don\u2019t need any more scenes while this reporter is around. Go on in, and let\u2019s get this over with.\u201d
\nTo me, the warden gave a weary smile. He switched back to English. \u201cEnjoy your visit,\u201d he said. \u201cMiss Trevi is very\u2014\u201d
\nHe paused, reflecting. \u201cYou\u2019ll see.\u201d
\n___________________________________
\nExcerpted from Starstruck: A Journalist\u2019s Pursuit of a Fugitive Pop Star, Her Diabolical Maestro, and Their Teenage Sex Cult, by Christopher McDougall. Copyright, 2026, Christopher McDougall. Published by Vintage. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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