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LONDON - Taiza Thomsen told reporters while representing Brazil at the Miss World contest in 2003 that she had no time for an institution that "flaunts women and their bodies".
It is a measure of the downward turn that the 24-year-old's life took that she had to work in a London strip club to make ends meet during a baffling six-month silence which sparked an international police hunt.
That silence ended yesterday when Thomsen, who last contacted her family in September, called Brazilian police from her new home in north London to say she was safe and well but had no desire to see anyone - least of all her distraught parents.
The disappearance of the former Miss Brazil after moving 9500km to Britain in April last year from the Brazilian capital, Sao Paolo, gave rise to concern that she had fallen foul of a gang of sex traffickers.
Investigators said last night they were satisfied she had not been the subject of any pressure or coercion by another individual. Sources said Thomsen had severed contact with her family after an argument.
In a statement, the federal police in her native town of Joinville, in southern Brazil, said: "Thomsen reported she was doing well in London and that she did not want to be found, not even by her parents. She has the right to stay isolated."
But while it seems Thomsen did not fall foul of kidnappers, the idealism she expressed as a beauty pageant queen with the world at her feet four years ago rapidly gave way to harsh economic realities when she arrived in London as an impoverished immigrant 10 months ago.
The Independent has been told Thomsen, who was studying for a journalism degree before she left Brazil, may have gone to ground because her visa had expired.
At the time when she cut links with her parents last September, she was working at Sunset Strip, a sex club in London's Soho where she performed as a stripper for two months under the name "Sol" or Sun.
Tony Curran, the club's owner, said she had been a show dancer and never came into contact with clients. There is no suggestion Thomsen was working against her will.
Another Brazilian girl working at the bar, who gave her name as Vania, said Thomsen had taken on the work because she was short of money. Vania said: "She was such a happy and smiling person and she came here just to get some money. She wanted to study English."
Scotland Yard, which launched a search for Thomsen last week after being contacted by Interpol, said it had ended its operation after being contacted by the Brazilian police.
It is understood the former Miss Brazil was traced after a friend spotted a missing person poster in a north London hairdressers last weekend.
It was supposed to have been very different for the black-haired aspiring journalist, who described her hobbies in the Miss World contest as tennis, swimming, Samba and belly dancing.
The award led to the promise of further opportunities with travel to Panama and Nigeria in the Miss Universe and Miss World pageants.
It was while in Nigeria that Thomsen said she was more concerned with working for charity than flaunting her body. She added: "My ambition is to become a journalist and television hostess."
After her parents, Antonio and Angela, failed to hear anything from her after a hurried phone call that September, they went on Brazilian television last month to plead for information.
Last night, it seemed that the couple were content to leave their daughter alone for the time being.
- INDEPENDENT
