Girl (15) allegedly pimped out by Romanian cop who hid out in Ireland took her own life, mum says

The Sunday World reported last month that Mihai Gabriel Latis (42), who was a gendarme in Suceava in northern Romania but resigned in 2019, moved to Ireland after he was arrested for trafficking in minors and accused of pimping them out.

Latis, who moved to Ireland last year, told the Sunday World via social media that he was not on the run from authorities and would return to Romania to face trial if requested and would prove his innocence.

He also claimed he had left Ireland at the beginning of March to fight against the Russians in Ukraine but offered no evidence to prove this and later blocked us from contacting him.

The Sunday World subsequently discovered Latis had been living in an apartment just outside Blessington in Co. Wicklow.

When we called to the apartment last week, another Romanian man living there claimed Latis had left days earlier and not the beginning of March as Latis had claimed.

The mother of one of his alleged victims also told the Sunday World in recent weeks that he was recently spotted in Romania and she finds it hard to believe he was fighting in Ukraine.

Latis was arrested with his mistress in 2019 on suspicion of trafficking in minors and pimping them out for sex, sometimes to other cops.

The investigation by the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) was completed in recent months by which stage Latis had moved to Ireland.

Authorities allege that Latis and his then-mistress, who he has since married, recruited a 15-year-old girl to have sex with men for money and took half of her earnings.

It is alleged they had pimped her out for more than half a year between 2016 and 2017.

Authorities claim that they then recruited another vulnerable 15-year-old girl in January 2017 and pressured her into prostitution while taking half the profits. It is alleged they gave the girl between 50 lei and 150 lei (€10 to €30) for each client.

Latis denies the allegations.

It has now emerged that the second girl, who was identified as Maria S., took her own life on July 12, 2017.

Her mother Elena said that she believes her daughter’s death was linked to being forced into prostitution.

She said the case had been dragging on for years but still hasn’t reached court.

“I am not interested in the fate of this individual or what will happen to him,” she told the Sunday World. “He will live his whole life with his soul loaded and chased like a dog because what he does is not life.”

She added that despite his claims that he is fighting in Ukraine he has been spotted back in Romania.

“He was in Romania. They told me from home that they had seen him. I say, one who does not have the courage to face the truth and flees like a coward, is fighting in Ukraine?”

Latis has told investigators that he and his then mistress were friends with the minors but weren’t pimping them out but Elena suggested to the Sunday World they were far too young to be friends with a man who was in his late 30s at that time.

“I'm just making a small parenthesis that both girls were children at the time ... you judge if there could be a friendship between the two lovers and these two children.”

She said the other alleged victim knows the truth of what happened.

“The other girl lives and knows everything.”

Elena first spoke publicly about her daughter’s death in Romanian news outlet Glasul Sucevei at the end of March.

"She was killed because she was being investigated,” she told them. “The other girl knows more, but she's afraid to talk, she told me at the funeral.

“The story is long, reports to the police, threats… I took evidence to the police with videos of drugs, found on my daughter's phone when she was alive.”

She said police collected the phone after her daughter’s death.

“I no longer seek justice because it does not exist. It doesn't matter to me whether he is convicted or not, I just know he will be cursed for life.”

She said the other girl came to her daughter’s vigil and told her that her daughter didn’t want to be involved. “Her first words were: ‘she didn’t want to do what they said’.”

Elena said the girl subsequently burst into tears and left.