
EXCLUSIVE Below Deck star HUGO ORTEGA reveals the dark reality for women who want to be a 'yachtie' as superyacht crew member is 'murdered' in Bahamas: 'There's rape, violence... stewardesses are like toys - attacks are covered up'
The superyacht captain and newest bosun on the hit reality show has spoken out to warn of the dangers faced by female crew after the death of stewardess Paige Bell on board a luxury motor yacht in the Bahamas.
'The recent tragedy involving Paige is not an isolated incident - it's a symptom of something much deeper,' Hugo told MailOnline.
'Behind the glossy image of the yachting industry lies a serious and ongoing crisis in crew safety, particularly around harassment, abuse, and toxic working conditions.
'These are cases of rape, physical violence, and psychological abuse happening in workplaces with no independent HR, no external oversight, and often no consequence for perpetrators,' he said.
'Victims are removed from boats, sent to hotels, and offered hush money tied to NDAs. Meanwhile, abusers continue working, moving from yacht to yacht, protected by silence and hierarchy.'
Some 65 per cent of yacht workers including captains and crew have witnessed or been aware of sexual harassment, be that physical or verbal, according to a 2018 survey by the Professional Yachting Association (PYA).
Shockingly, almost 40 per cent of respondents said they had personally been subjected to unwanted physical touching working on board, while 50 per cent said they had received unwanted sexual or sexist comments.
Hugo, who has been in the industry for more than a decade, said he has 'worked under dozens of male captains and been on boats with male deck crew who talk about stewardesses like they're toys.'
He recalled the 'countless' times he had personally seen women fall victim to inappropriate behaviour from crew members at every level.
'The 'creepy' engineer that always touches their hips when he passes by her in the crew mess,' he said. 'Deck crew that give relentless verbal sexual harassment with no punishment because 'that's how it is at sea.''
He added that even captains, who are ultimately responsible for the conduct and safety of the entire crew, cross the line, describing how even married men are known to 'invite the chief stew for drinks or to their home far too many times for comfort.'
Recalling one of many shocking cases he has witnessed in his decade-long career, Hugo told how one chief stew he worked with was 'sexually intimidated' by a yacht owner and decided to report what had happened.
'She went through the right channels - told management. They dismissed it,' he said.
'Then when the owner caught wind of it, they handed her a $50,000 settlement and forced her resignation. That's how problems get 'handled' in this industry - money over accountability.'
'Almost all' super-rich yacht owners have NDAs written into their workers' contracts, he said.
'While they're supposedly there to protect the privacy of the owner and guests, in reality they're used to silence victims.
'Crew are scared to speak out because they're told if they break the NDA, they'll be sued, fired, or blacklisted.'
When new crew start on a yacht, he said, they don't know who they'll be working and living with, or even sharing a cabin with, for long periods at sea.
While cabin assignments are typically same-gender, Hugo says, there are occasions when there isn't enough living space for crew and male and female staff have to share.
In an ongoing case this year, a British stewardess sued the owners of 40-metre motor yacht EALU, alleging she was sexually assaulted by a male crewmember while asleep in a shared cabin.
The woman alleged that the yacht's operator knowingly housed her with a male chef despite clear risks, creating an unsafe living environment.
Hugo, a crew trainer, said he always warns women about how close the living quarters can be with their male colleagues and tells them not to 'build trust slowly'.
'If you're stepping onto a yacht with all-male crew or you're the only one onboard besides the captain? That's a red flag until proven otherwise.
'I'm not saying it's always dangerous, but it's a setup where stuff can go wrong fast, and too often it does.'
Yachting's reputation of heavy boozing and partying among staff is close to the truth on some boats, he added.
'Young and green' crew members, often living far from home for the first time, can find themselves flung into a 'work hard, play hard vibe', where 'drinks are flowing, lines are being crossed, and no one really watching.'
Inexperienced youngsters 'might not clock the warning signs' early enough, he said, advising that those entering the industry 'don't rush to let loose.'
'A uniform and a crew title doesn't make someone safe. Familiarity just makes it easier to ignore red flags. And on yachts, where privacy is limited and reputations are everything, that's the perfect storm.
'What I've seen is, when a predator gets comfortable, they get bolder. Suddenly it's, "Oops, I walked into the wrong cabin," or "come watch a movie in my room," and somehow they're undressed.'
While Hugo made no reference to the show he stars on, instances of misconduct on board have been caught on camera by the series.
One episode of Below Deck Down Under in particular left viewers shocked, and highlighted the importance of crew members watching out for each other's welfare.
When bosun Luke Jones stripped naked and tried to get into bed with a stewardess who was sleeping after drinking too much, the boat's chief stewardess intervened and notified the captain.
Jones was sacked, along with another crew member who tried to excuse his behaviour as a 'joke'.
Commenting on the industry as a whole rather than the specific incident, Hugo said that familiarity and close proximity on board often allows men to take advantage.
'I've seen all the excuses. It's the slow creep of boundary pushing - disguised as casual or friendly. And because everyone is "mates," people are less likely to report. No one wants to make it awkward. No one wants to be that crew member.'
He said the onus is on captains to 'set the tone' on board and foster a professional culture.
'As a captain now, I'm constantly reminding the guys onboard: this is a workplace, not a brothel. Just because we live together doesn't mean the rules of professionalism vanish.
'New crew - especially women - need to feel safe. And that starts with setting the tone from the top. Zero tolerance can't just be a policy. It has to be a practice.'
Hugo said he would 'never forget' the landmark rape case in 2018, which saw a stewardess awarded $70.6million in damages after she was sexually assaulted by a deck hand.
'I was a deckhand at the time, and I heard guys joking about it. Saying they'd 'gladly get raped for that kind of payout.'
'Like the trauma of a woman getting violently assaulted could somehow be turned into a payday fantasy. It was disgusting.'
Shockingly, there are no obligations for yacht management firms or private owners to screen new staff, meaning offenders can get jobs as crew members without disclosing possible criminal backgrounds.
In one high-profile case, a boat captain was hired to helm luxury yachts despite being on a five-year probation for a felony battery charge and having a previous criminal conviction.
Jessie Frost, who worked for a decade on yachts and is now director of UK recruitment firm Crewfolio, believes background checks are needed to stop offenders entering or re-entering the industry.
'If you're questioning the need for background checks in an industry where assault, harassment and even murder have occurred, then I'd respectfully ask: what exactly are you defending? This shouldn't be controversial,' she told Dockwalk magazine.
She started a petition two years ago calling for criminal background checks to be made a legal requirement for all seafarers, with her petition gaining momentum following the news of Paige Bell's death.
While calls for improved candidate screening have been backed across the industry, Hugo and many others argue that these sort of checks alone simply aren't enough.
'A background check won't reveal someone who's assaulted three stewardesses but was never reported because of NDAs or fear of retaliation. It's a surface-level fix to a deep-rooted issue,' he said.
The biggest problem facing yachting, he believes, is the lack of safe complaint procedures on superyachts, which are often privately owned or run by management companies protecting wealthy clients.
'Yachting is still an old boys' club, dominated by white, wealthy men in nearly every decision-making role - captains, brokers, fleet managers.'
Hugo said that senior male crew and captains who have been in the industry for years and whose behaviour has never been challenged develop 'god complexes where no one says no to them.'
'You combine that with a rigid hierarchy, closed-door decision-making, and a crew too scared to speak up, and yeah… it's the perfect storm for abuse.
He said that from his experience, when abuse is reported it is very rare that the perpetrators face any consequences, with victims far more likely to be jeopardising their careers by coming forward.
'Victims are removed quietly, offered hush money, and warned not to go public. Meanwhile, the guy who assaulted them keeps working - same job, different boat.
'if anything happens at all, it's usually a quiet 'talking to' behind closed doors. The guy stays on. The behavior shifts for a week. And then we move on.'
He said because of this culture of silence and NDAs on board most ships, this behaviour never comes to the surface.
'There's no registry. No blacklist. No centralized way for future employers to know. So the cycle just resets. And until we put real weight behind consequences, this will keep happening.'
While he says he has seen some 'positive shifts' in the industry in recent years, 'it's not nearly enough'.
The glimmer of hope comes in the fact that more crew are now speaking out in what has long been a closed-door industry, Hugo says.
But outside these whisper networks and the important work done by maritime helplines, there is 'almost nothing' in place to protect people.
Attention is on the issue of women's safety after the harrowing events of the last month, Hugo says, but far too often incidents are brushed under the rug.
'The needle's moving - but slowly,' Hugo says. 'The real test will be what happens next.'
If you have been affected by any of the issues discussed, the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network's YachtCrewHelp is free, confidential, multilingual, available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and provides emotional, wellbeing and practical support to yacht crew and their families of any nationality:
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Daily Mail
35 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Britain's porn crackdown begins TOMORROW: Users will have to prove they're over-18 to access hundreds of adult sites like Pornhub
There's just one day to go before online pornography becomes a lot harder to watch in the UK. From tomorrow (July 25), porn sites available in the UK will have to perform stringent checks to ensure visitors are aged 18 or over. In an attempt to stop children accessing porn, adults will have to submit ID or even have their face scanned, depending on what site they access. Several porn providers have confirmed to online regular Ofcom that they will introduce these checks by tomorrow's deadline. They include Pornhub, BoyfriendTV, Cam4, FrolicMe, inxxx, Jerkmate, LiveHDCams, MyDirtyHobby, RedTube, Streamate, Stripchat, Tube8 and YouPorn. Other online platforms have also confirmed they will deploy age assurance - including Bluesky, Discord, Grindr, Reddit, and X. If any sites fail to do so, Ofcom can impose fines and in very serious cases apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from being available. 'We will be actively checking compliance from 25 July and, should it be necessary, we expect to launch any investigations into individual services next week,' Ofcom said. Why is the porn crackdown happening? According to Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's group director of online safety, making life safer online 'is one of the defining challenges of our era'. 'Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren't suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling,' he said. 'But for too long children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online. 'Now, change is happening. These age checks will bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world, without compromising access and privacy for over-18s.' How will the age checks work? Ofcom has already listed seven methods that porn providers could use. Ultimately, which one they opt for is their decision, not Ofcom's, but their chosen method must be 'highly effective' at correctly determining if a user is under 18. Ofcom's seven suggested strategies are photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile-network operator (MNO) age checks, credit card checks, email-based age estimation, digital identity services and open banking. Open banking works by accessing the information a bank has on record regarding a user's age, while photo-ID matching involves uploading a verified photo-ID document, like a PDF of a passport of driving licence. Facial age estimate works by analysing the features of a user's face from a photo to work their age, while MNO age checks involve mobile-network operators applying age-restriction filters themselves. Because you must be 18 to get a credit card in the UK, credit card checks are also listed as 'highly effective', as are email-based age estimations, which estimate your age based on other services where you've provided your email address. 'The process can be as simple as submitting an email address and will return an accurate result in seconds,' explained Lina Ghazal, head of regulatory and public affairs at safety tech firm Verifymy. What happens if porn sites don't comply? Ofcom says that many porn sites have already put their age checks in place. It stresses that the law applies to all sites and apps that allow pornography – whether they are dedicated adult sites or social media, search or gaming services. Fines for non-comply could be up to £18 million or 10 per cent of the platform's qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater. The Online Safety Act The crackdown is part of the Online Safety Act 2023 – a set of laws that protects children and adults online. Mrs Ghazal said it is a 'great step forward for child safety', adding: 'It means some of the world's biggest sites will have highly effective age assurance in place that protects children and also preserves the privacy of users.' The idea of implementing age checks on pornography websites, and fining those sites that don't comply, has existed for several years now. Back in 2016, the UK government launched a public consultation over plans to implement age checks on pornography sites. It was then included in the Digital Economy Act 2017 – but the provision was delayed and eventually abandoned in October 2019. Government said at the time age checks would be delivered through its 'proposed online harms regulatory regime' – in other words, the Online Safety Bill. One criticism of age-checking technology for porn is regarding concerns about handing sensitive identification information – namely age or date of birth – to third parties. 'Everyone realised right from the start – 2016 – that users were not going to want to share their name, let alone a copy of their passport or driving licence, with a porn site,' said Iain Corby, director of Age Verification Providers Association. New research from Ofcom reveals the extent to which children are accessing porn online, and underlines the need for new measures to protect them. It found that eight per cent of children aged 8-14 in the UK visited an online porn site or app in a month – including around 3 per cent of 8–9-year-olds – the youngest children in the study. Ofcom's research tracked the use of websites and apps by 8–14-year-olds across smartphones, tablets and computers over a month. Boys aged 13-14 (19 per cent) were mostly likely to visit a porn service, significantly more than girls the same age (11 per cent).


The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Late Jesuit global leader didn't stop known child molester from becoming priest
Pedro Arrupe, the late, former worldwide leader of the Jesuit religious order and a candidate for Catholic sainthood, acknowledged in records produced as part of a New Orleans court case that he was warned about how one of the group's aspiring priests had been accused of sexually molesting two minors and acknowledged making sexual advances on a third. The man was ultimately ordained, and there is no indication in records in the court case in Louisiana state court that Arrupe – who coined the Jesuits' slogan 'men for others' – took steps to prevent him from becoming a priest. The man was later accused of molesting other minors he met through his ministry. Arrupe's involvement in the case of Donald J Dickerson – who died in 2016 and two years later was confirmed by the Jesuits to be one of hundreds of their members faced with substantial claims of child molestation – began toward the end of the 1970s. But it has drawn new scrutiny in a lawsuit that accuses Dickerson of raping a 17-year-old student at a Jesuit-run university in New Orleans. The case in New Orleans civil district court raises questions about whether Arrupe, a beloved figure whose name is on numerous prestigious awards and buildings at Jesuit institutions around the world, did as much as he could to protect those who trusted in his order. Church officials in Rome in 2019 initiated the process to canonize Arrupe, who is known for having ministered to survivors of the US's atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the second world war. The first stage of that process has thrust Arrupe one step closer to becoming a saint, as the Jesuits themselves described it. The new concerns about Arrupe come at a time when the broader global Catholic church has been sending mixed signals about the urgency of addressing the clergy abuse scandal that has roiled it for decades. Pope Leo XIV in June said the church must 'not tolerate any … abuse', sexual or otherwise, and earlier in July the pontiff appointed French bishop Thibault Verny to lead the Vatican's child protection advisory commission. However, also in June but in another part of France, the archdiocese of Toulouse gave the high-ranking position of chancellor to a priest who had been imprisoned after being convicted of raping a 16-year-old boy in 1993. And a former Vatican diplomat who was convicted of possessing and distributing child abuse imagery reportedly has been allowed to continue working as one of several clerks at the Vatican's secretariat of state. At least one Jesuit official who testified under oath as part of the lawsuit accusing Dickerson of raping a minor on the campus of Loyola University New Orleans said he was horrified by the way the order admitted the suspected pederast into its clerical ranks. 'I think the whole thing is appalling,' said John Armstrong, a priest who described himself as secretary of the Jesuits' US central and southern province – which includes New Orleans – while an attorney for the plaintiff questioned him in early June. Meanwhile, a statement from attorneys representing the plaintiff who describes having survived being raped by Dickerson at a Loyola dormitory issued a statement saying Arrupe 'shouldn't … be canonized a saint'. His name also 'should be stripped from every building, award or anything else it currently graces', reads the statement from attorneys Richard Trahant, John Denenea and Soren Gisleson, all lawyers for numerous people who reported being sexually abused by clergy assigned to Catholic institutions in New Orleans, which is the church's second-oldest diocese in the US. A spokesperson at the Jesuit central and southern province declined to comment, citing a policy against discussing pending litigation. Neither Loyola nor the Shreveport diocese in north-west Louisiana where Dickerson was assigned during the alleged campus rape immediately responded to requests for comment. Arrupe spent 18 years as the Jesuits' superior general beginning in 1965. He was mailed a 20 December 1977 letter detailing concerns regarding part of Dickerson's abusive past, about four years after he was credited with conceiving the order's enduring 'men for others' mantra – encapsulating the Jesuits' zeal for community service – during an address to members in his native Spain. The letter from Thomas Stahel, Arrupe's fellow Jesuit and at the time the top official – or provincial – in the region including New Orleans, recounts how Dickerson had just gone on a retreat where he 'made sexual advances on [a] 14-year-old boy'. The boy, a student at the Jesuit-run Brebeuf college preparatory school in Indianapolis, told his parents – who in turn reported Dickerson to Stahel. Stahel's letter made clear that he believed the boy because he was at least the third child on whom Dickerson had been accused of inflicting abuse. By then, Dickerson had amassed a history 'of overt homosexual encounters with two high school boys whom he masturbated', Stahel's letter said. As their client pursued a lawsuit against the Jesuits decades later, Trahant, Gisleson and Denenea obtained records from the order's regional archives through legal discovery showing Dickerson had admitted abuse which occurred while he was studying to become a priest and was assigned to the order's high school in New Orleans. The Jesuits sent him to psychiatric treatment from February to June in 1975 without reporting him to civil authorities to be investigated as a criminal child molester. That was the Catholic church's custom at the time, though it has acknowledged that that practice was misguided and has sought to reform its protocols in such cases, including by urging its leaders to be transparent and report offenders to law enforcement. Dickerson completed the treatment and gained a recommendation from a Jesuit official named Louis Lambert to be ordained as a priest. As Stahel put it, Lambert excused Dickerson as only behaving abusively whenever he 'got nervous'. Yet, having learned of a third abusive incident attributed to Dickerson at the time he wrote his letter, Stahel implored Arrupe to at least hold off on the ordination, which had been scheduled for two days after Christmas that year. 'Dickerson seems to me a poor risk for ordination,' Stahel – who was also known for being a longtime editor at the Jesuits' America magazine – told Arrupe. 'I do not think we can in conscience present Dickerson … as ready for ordination.' The Jesuits subsequently postponed Dickerson's ordination – 'till further study of his suitability,' with Arrupe's approval, according to Stahel's December 1977 letter – and once again sent him to psychiatric treatment in 1978. In September 1978, Arrupe wrote to Lambert, saying he had gotten the psychiatric report on Dickerson. 'I shall await further information on the case from Father Stahel,' Arrupe wrote. Arrupe does not appear in any other documents so far reviewed by the Guardian and WWL Louisiana. In June 1979 and January 1980, Stahel wrote a pair of memos describing conversations with Dickerson, who had been a brother with the Sacred Heart order before joining the Jesuits, according to the website Dickerson in the first conversation said that 'the incident of December, 1977' was 'relatively insignificant' and that the doctor who treated him agreed, Stahel wrote. In the second conversation, Dickerson again asserted his belief that the same incident was 'relatively insignificant', Stahel wrote. But, Stahel continued, Dickerson understood 'such incidents have far reaching consequences, can cause scandal and in short must be regarded as serious'. Dickerson was ordained as a priest in 1980, according to information published by the Jesuits. It wouldn't be until 1983 that Arrupe stepped down as the superior general of the Society of Jesus, as the order is formally known. He had suffered a debilitating stroke in 1981. After his ordination, Dickerson was assigned to the order's college preparatory high school in Dallas. Jesuit officials did not alert leaders at the campus about their knowledge that Dickerson was a child molester, according to the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper attributed that fact to a deposition given by an order official in charge of schools in the region, Philip Postell, amid clergy abuse-related litigation many years later. By July 1981, Stahel received a letter from Postell informing him that Dickerson had been removed from Dallas's Jesuit college preparatory school. The parents of a child had reported an accusation against Dickerson to the school, whose principal discovered the various prior abusive episodes, the Dallas Morning News reported. The parents' accusation was one of multiple reports of child abuse made against Dickerson while at the school. Postell – who was president of the Dallas Jesuit college preparatory school from 1992 to 2011 – eventually conceded under oath that he should have reported Dickerson to law enforcement at that point, according to the Morning News. But Jesuit leaders simply transferred Dickerson about 200 miles east to the Cathedral of St John Berchmans in Shreveport, Louisiana. While assigned to St John, Dickerson frequently visited Loyola New Orleans, where he had gone for his undergraduate and post-graduate studies, the plaintiff represented by Trahant, Gisleson and Denenea would later assert in court. The plaintiff recounted gaining early admission into Loyola in August 1984 at age 17 and meeting Dickerson shortly after beginning his freshman year. Dickerson soon began inviting the plaintiff to dinner weekly alongside other priests. That allegedly escalated into groping and oral rape, including behind a sacristy. The plaintiff would later say in his lawsuit that he was eventually raped by Dickerson in a dorm room. The Jesuits at last got rid of Dickerson after the Shreveport church to which he was assigned received a letter in 1986 from a family reporting him for 'feeling and touching' their son inappropriately, as the Dallas Morning News noted. It was by then at least the seventh documented allegation against Dickerson – not counting the underage Loyola New Orleans student, who came forward after many years had passed. A Jesuit official handling that seventh known complaint against Dickerson drafted a memo to colleagues in which he insisted that the accused clergyman deserved 'to be given the benefit of the doubt'. 'We should proceed on something like this very cautiously,' the official, Edmundo Rodriguez, wrote in the memo. 'On the possibility of a set up, however remote', the memo added, deliberation about Dickerson should be limited only to 'this particular case'. Nothing should be discussed publicly either given 'the sensitivity of the material', Rodriguez added. Rodriguez also suggested the Jesuits provide $10,000 to Dickerson in living expenses over the next year, especially while the matter was pending. Dickerson, for his part, resigned less than a week later, saying it was for his 'own peace and the good of the Society of Jesus'. 'I am grateful to the society for what it has done to try to help me,' including sending him to 'extensive psychological therapy' at Foundation House in Jemez Spring, New Mexico, Dickerson wrote in his resignation. 'It is clear now that these measures have not been enough to prevent my falling into problems which become public and have the potential of harming the Society of Jesus and the church seriously. 'I appreciate your willingness to suspend judgment on the question of moral culpability and to acknowledge my genuine efforts to overcome my tendencies.' The Jesuits revealed in December 2018 that Dickerson was a credibly accused child predator. That year, it included him on a published list of more than 40 order priests and other members who had been the subject of child molestation claims deemed credible while working in what is now considered the order's central and southern province in the US. Jesuit officials released that list within months of a Pennsylvania grand jury report which established Catholic clergy abuse in that state had been more widespread than originally thought, creating pressure for groups such as the Jesuits to be transparent about molesters in their employ. Dickerson – who spent time in Nebraska after his Jesuit career, according to public records – died at age 80 in August 2016. That was about 15 years after Arrupe had died. In June 2024, the former Loyola New Orleans student who was allegedly abused by Dickerson sued the university, the Jesuits and the Shreveport Catholic diocese for damages. He did so almost immediately after Louisiana's supreme court upheld a law temporarily allowing people in the state to sue for compensation over sexual abuse no matter how long ago it had occurred. The lawsuit was unresolved as of Thursday, with the defendants generally trying to attack the validity of the law which enabled the plaintiff to file against them for damages. They also have contended that the allegations against Dickerson were outside the scope and course of his ministry. Nonetheless, at least one Jesuit has made it clear that he was not proud of how the order managed Dickerson. That official is John Armstrong, the assistant secretary of the Jesuit central and southern province, which disclosed that Dickerson was a child predator. Armstrong recounted how he once participated in a meeting about Dickerson in 1976, after the order realized he was a problem. He said he then had to work in Dickerson's proximity in New Orleans in the mid-1980s and loathed it, even though they interacted only once as far as he could remember. Under oath, Armstrong confirmed the Jesuits would not have needed to let Dickerson be present at any of their institutions – such as Loyola, where Dickerson purportedly abused the plaintiff – if they had ousted him or turned him over to law enforcement. Referring to how the Jesuits dealt with Dickerson throughout his career, Armstrong said he believed it was 'appalling that it was handled that way'. It was 'appalling that it happened,' Armstrong said. '[I] feel terrible for the people that were victims of [Dickerson's], and it is beyond my understanding how after that first incident … he was allowed to go any further.'


Sky News
4 hours ago
- Sky News
Venezuelan scarred after being sent to maximum security prison by Trump administration
Arturo Suarez cries as he hugs his family for the first time in months. His sister's modest home in Caracas, Venezuela's capital city, is decorated with red, blue and black balloons and banners to welcome him back. Friends and neighbours fill the living room and the street outside. He video calls other family members elsewhere in the world. This is the first time they have heard his voice since March. "I hadn't felt so safe for a while," Arturo tells Sky News, "when I hugged my brothers, my uncle, my aunt, that's where I felt that the nightmare was over, that I had made it home." Then the story of what he had endured begins to pour out of him. The 34-year-old was one of more than 250 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, despite having no criminal record in any of the four countries he has lived in. Last week, he was released as part of a prisoner swap with 10 American citizens and permanent residents detained in Venezuela. But he is scarred by the four months he spent at the CECOT prison, a terrorism confinement centre, in El Salvador, alongside some of the world's most dangerous men. "We were constantly beaten," he says, "we suffered physical, verbal, and psychological abuse. "There wasn't a day the wardens didn't tell us that the only way we'd leave that place was if we were dead. In fact, the first words the head of the prison said to us after the first beating was 'welcome to hell'." Arturo is an aspiring singer. He had moved to the US to escape Venezuela's authoritarian regime and set up home in North Carolina. He had a feeling when Donald Trump became president for a second time that there would be a crackdown on immigration, as promised in his campaign. But, because Arturo had followed all the legal channels to enter the country, he didn't think he would be caught up in the deportation policy. He was wrong. While he was filming a music video in a house in North Carolina in March, he was arrested by immigration agents and accused by the White House of being a gang member, although they have provided little evidence publicly to support that claim. He was then flown to El Salvador - a country he had never even visited - and put in a maximum security prison. His ordeal was under way. "We were sleeping 19 people to a cell," he says, "if we spoke loudly, they would take away our mattresses, if they found us bathing more than once a day, they'd take away the mattresses from us. "The punishment was severe. It was beatings and humiliations and they took away our food. "I remember we were exercising and a cellmate, very politely, asked the prison head if we could bathe a second time that day, since we were doing exercise. "His words were 'that's your problem, it's not my problem if you exercise'. We were also made to eat with our hands. "They tried to take our humanity away from us. They tried to make us lose everything." The Trump administration paid El Salvador millions of dollars to detain the 252 Venezuelan men, claiming they were part of the notorious Tren De Aragua gang. Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, visited the prison for a tour and photoshoot in March and Arturo saw her. "Obviously they did a show of this," he says, "they had cameras. When she came in, my cellmates and I began to make the help sign, which she disliked a lot. We began to shout freedom." Arturo was denied due process to appeal his extradition to El Salvador and was not allowed to speak to a lawyer or any family or friends during his time in prison. as he appealed for his release. He said Arturo's only crime was having tattoos, which the White House cited as evidence of involvement with gangs. On a video call, Arturo shows me the tattoos. Most of them, he says, are in tribute to his late mother. I ask if he thinks that the Trump administration believed he was a gang member. "I think it was just an excuse to get us out," he says, "we weren't taken for having tattoos or belonging to a criminal gang. "We were taken for being Venezuelans. And today I want to tell the world that being Venezuelan is not a crime." When he applied for asylum in the United States, Arturo had hoped to be reunited eventually with his wife, Nathali, and their 10-month-old daughter Nahiara, who are currently in Chile. "When I was given the opportunity to go to the United States, I was going to go with my wife," he says, "we found out that she was pregnant but I went anyway because it was for the future, for my daughter's future. "Unfortunately, this decision led me to one of the most brutal prisons. What I most long for, is to be with my daughter and my wife." He's now being supported by other family members in Venezuela, but he will never return to the US. He went for a better life but instead was labelled a criminal. Now, he says, he just wants to clear his name.