Bulgarian slaves in Italy

A Bulgarian prostitute - a victim of a serial killer

NADIA CHOLAKOVA

STANIMIR VAGLENOV

An ex prostitute Vania is 30 years-old and she can not speak yet.

Roberto Spinetti will spend the rest of his life into the prison located in Salerno town. The pistol shot is damaged Vania’s spinal column. Her vocal chords are cut off. She will be paralyzed by the end of her life.

For about 10 km before to reach Vratza, by the road to Sofia a man can turn off to a smaller road, very well known by many TIR drivers. The girls over there are changing very often, but the services they are offering remain the same. Our check-up found out that the serial road butterfly that in a friendly manner shakes her hand as a hitch-hiker at the every passing car, is not only ready to offer sex services, but easily can “be send on a business trip” to Italy.

- Ahh, I don’t travel.

- I am working.

- What are you working?

- What do you think I could do on the high-way?

- I am offering sex services! I blow and I fuck for money …

- And what are the prices?

- To blow you – 15, and for fucking 20…

- Uahh, it is too cheap! Recently I was in Italy – your job is a serious business over there.

- Man, here we are not abroad. I’ve also been abroad and if this is the matter in hand I’ve earned there up to 70 lv to blow and 100 EURO for only one fucking.

- I had some problems with my companion there.

- Yes, you can call him like this.

- Oh, no! He has not beaten me, we’ve just had some reservation – he had to start give me the money, but he did not … and then I took the plane to Bulgaria.

- This is the right decision. But why you do not go alone – then you will have no problems.

- Well…, because I need money for the departure.

- Ah … well I do not know, I have not think about this.

- Look, now I do not know this. I did not think like this.

• Well, why don’t you think for a while, I will pass by again tomorrow.
• - O.K. I am here.

- Yes, I think at the same time I will be here.

- See you.

The action is after the neighbors had given signals. From a month or so, they are listening scandals, screams of horror and crying. Under the examination the girl say that she came to Rome as a waitress for the summer time. The man and the woman force the teenage girl to become a prostitute. She set against them. They keep her under lock and key for a month. They scourge her naked body with a lash. They forced her to stay for hours on one leg. The girl is saved at the moment. We are to turn her back to Bulgaria. “Recently another girl was lied she will work as a waitress in Italy. She has passed through a terror and a violence.”, an expert from Ministry of Internal Affairs states. She is saved during a police action. Before coming back to Bulgaria the girl says she is afraid. The pimps had threatened her to fire the house where her mother and her little child live. For several months we lodged her into an asylum for victims suffered a traffic.

A champagne, roses and candied lies

The first organized wave of Bulgarian escort ladies swamps Italy in the end of 80’s. The most elite of them come back to Bulgaria as prosperous business ladies. Today they are representatives of prestigious Italian companies. They own luxurious boutiques, fitness centers and beauty salons on the most expensive streets and neighborhoods in Sofia. Most of them are happily married. They are members of female business clubs. By one or another way they shave the political elite. They demonstrate their position in the society as if they never had sold their bodies. The first wave still launches the myth for the triumph of “the Italians ladies” from Bulgaria. Gallant cavaliers used to cover them with presents only in exchange for a warm look.

20 years later, this legend motivates hundreds of Bulgarian girls to go repeatedly to the state of the boot to make quick money.

In the majority of the cases the things that our adventurers pass through in Italy can be compared with

directed to the liking of maniacs with hard childhood, with a nazi styled mother and father sociopath. Became hardened to trashing and carmagnoles, submissive and with amputated sense of aggression, saints without miracles and virtues – this is the picture of the Bulgarian prostitutes in Italy. In the sunrise of their 20 years they feel like old women. They’ve drunk the life bottom up, up to the sediment. Those who have managed to escape form their pimps are often smiling. They are joyful because they can breathe. Even though, deeply inside, they to had passed their sunny 20 years.

The prostitutes of the lowest possible level are known in the Criminal world in Bulgarian as “the soldiers”. In Italy their flesh is exposed on the street in cheep brothels and poor accommodations. They pour over them with aggression as a boxing pear. “The soldiers” are prostitutes of their own free will. They do this because of the misery and the drama of the every day sagas, deserving of Dickens’s pen. The manipulation in the lowest level acts according to the principle “the strong one enslaves the weak one and is ready to throw down them to the lions.” Often the pimps resell the girls to each other as there are old cars, that they are not fond of any more. They replenish the free niche with fresher flesh.

“Bulgarian channels to Italy are passing through Greece, Macedonia and Albania”, an anti-mafia guy from Traffic of people Departments with National Service for Fight with the Organized Criminality says. – Most of the girls are crossing the borders with official passports through Serbia, Monte Negro, Slovenia and Trieste. A majority of them are leaving the country voluntarily and they are clear about the price they have to pay. Others are

leaving after they’ve received a job offer for a seasonal work – cleaning ladies, maid-servants, waitress and dancers. They understand that have been cheated in Italy. There also start the problems with the violence. We are receiving reports and signals from our colleagues in Italy not before the victim of traffic of people seeks help from the police. The other scenario is she to come back to Bulgaria and to testify which will help us to learn more about the problems there.

The prostitutes are more susceptible to make self confessions abroad than in Bulgaria. Abroad they are feeling more protected. In our country most of the trials against pimps are a chronicle of the foreshadowed failure. The priestesses of the night steep the pimps only in the cases when their material interests are injured by them or they are in the ward of a new “patron”. “There is always a breakdown in the system – the ex and the present pimp make a deal in between. The prostitutes are changing their testimony.”, a chief in DNSP service department comments.

in Kosovo and Albania”,

says Karlota Sami from “Save the children” organization in Rome. From there they usually are transferring them in South Italy. The girls never stay at one and the same place. The cities targets for the prostitutes and the pimps are Rome, Torino, Venice, Milan and Bologna.”

Many Bulgarians are brandishing false passports from EU countries. The countries preferred are Netherlands and Belgium where the prostitution is legalized.

“Often the Bulgarian white slaves in Italy are sold to Albanian pimps.”, an anti mafia guy from National Service for Fight with the Organized Criminality forewarns about. “The Albanians give the girls false passports that had belonged to them. The countrywomen disguise themselves in order to mislead the Italian authorities. These days they deported from Tirana a Bulgarian prostitute – a girl that used to introduce herself as Albanian.”

22 years-old Daniela is from Gabrovo town. Two dodgers from Pleven bring her to Piachentza, an exotic report standing at 150 km away from Milan. They lie the good-looked girl that they will make her an animator who jingle with cocktails in “Milk dreams” bar. In the culmination of the night Daniela has to throw on the ground the jolly fellows with a wild dance around a pile. She takes the idea to her heart. For several months she takes lessons in her native town. The artistic ensemble comes to Piachentza but they never reach “Milk dreams” bar. Two dodgers from Pleven introduce her to two Albanians. They sell her to them for 2500 EURO. They try to make her a prostitute. Daniela manifests a strong mindedness, she set against them. The Albanians knock her as a hostage and they propose her to buy off herself for 3000 EURO. She sends a SMS to her mother – a widow that hardly ekes out a livelihood. She asks her to collect the money and to send it to her in Italy. The poor woman makes a complaint in the police in Gabrovo. She refers the policemen to the two dodgers from Pleven. They detain them in the arrest and they explain everything from the very beginning to the end.

At last Daniela is set free during a police ride. She comes back to Vratza last summer.

Many other Bulgarian girls have the similar destiny; they are caught in the trap of the dodgers from Pleven. Each one of these girls has made between 700 and 750 EURO per night. Another victim of the same organization is 22 years-old girl. After she serves the clients she was obliged to call her pimps and to report what exactly she had done with them. Afterwards she had been forced to

recreate the sex in details.

Two girls are working for another Bulgarian pimp in Piachentza. He profits from the girls for a long time. He does it carnally and financially. He is detained last summer after the two white slaves testify. The first girl admits she was compelled to transfer the money on her behalf to the pimp in Bulgaria. She has made this operation many times. Last time she has transferred 40 000 EURO, she claims in her testimony. The Italians accommodates these prostitutes in special homes. They’ve enroll them in a language courses and then they’ve found them a work. Not a single girl detained in Piachentza does not insist to come back to Bulgaria.

Last summer a group of Bulgarian pimps from North-West part of the country are detained in Trento town, Northern Italy. An acquisition for procuring against them is brought. In June last year they achieved by deception to bring to Italy several Bulgarians. The first victim is Eleonora from Sofia. She is 23 years-old. They diddle her that she will be taken to an excursion to San Remo. In Trento they command her to prostitute. They transfer her from one hotel to another from San Remo to Trento. At the end they shut her up into an apartment full of Bulgarian prostitutes. They entrust her to a countrywoman madam. Each night Maria sees how the girls are controlled. They are passing a practical test – what kind of pleasures they’ve given to the customers. Regularly the two pimps from North-Western Bulgaria cross the square and collect the money. They are equipped with a dozen of mobile phones. They call the girls with the insistence of an insane people. Eleonora becomes hysterical, but the two pimps and madam rape her and maltreat her for about a month. They bend her. The debutant marches by the street. Accidentally Eleonora gets into the group of prostitutes, arrested during a police action. She seeks a protection from the cops and assists them in the investigation. At the moment she is in Bulgaria. Five Italians oppose to her return. They are mad of love and each one of them is ready to save her… Everyone believes he is the only one for them.

“The market-places of flesh in Italy are under the control of our groups with big potential. They stand for control over the drugs in order to support their army”, a source from DNSP says. “The one, who controls the drugs, controls also the markets of girls. The strong guys are pulling the strings of all kinds of traffic affairs.”

In Italy our criminal bosses concord lands with emigration of their region into Bulgaria, a high level policeman from Ministry of Internal Affairs reveals. The native prostitutes are concentrated in Northern Italy – Milan, Padua, Peskara, Venice, Mestre, Torino. The forced structure establishes control over the Bulgarian criminality in these regions. The flesh exporters pay the force group. The force group helps them to settle down. They protect them. They undertake for the money transfers.

The foreign assets reach Bulgaria in cash, through a currier companies or via bank transfers. Most of the money is washed through auto parks and saloons. The pimps in large number are investing the money from the prostitution into the business with cars. Some of them have loan-offices and financial-brokers’ houses. Apparently marked zones in traffic of prostitutes towards Italy are Vratza region, Pazardjik region, Blagoevgrad region, Dupnitza, Pleven and Sliven regions. “Groups of pimps in these regions are exporting beautiful and soft flesh, that to present us in a fitting manner in the European Union!”, an officer from Ministry of Internal Affairs exclaims.

The structure originated from Vratza is very active in Italy. “This formation is a tail of the ex force group close to Valter Papazki”, sources from Ministry of Internal Affairs say. Criminals from Vratza govern entire towns in Italy. Dupnitza and Blagoevgrad supply Milan with prostitutes and pimps on a regular basis. It is no accident that the cradle of the haute couture has came into possession of the florid sobriquet

The pimps from Blagoevgrad and Dupnitza are acting independently. Some of them are recidivists with numerous old crimes. Gave, the brigand from Dupnitza for example shoots dead his best friend because of sheer nonsense, sources from Ministry of Internal Affairs say. He kills him while they are playing with a Scorpion pistol. With the speed of the lightening he runs to Italy, where he devotes himself to procuring. In Italy during a police action he is arrested and is sent to prison where he becomes friend with Giavoleto – another brigand from Dupnitza. He is well-known in Bulgaria as a specialist of wet orders. In Italy he is in a cold storage for blackmailing and a robbery. The prison swears the brotherhood between the Dupnitza guys. They work together till the death of Giavoleto who is shot dead last year in Dupnitza. “The most seriously organized groups for flesh traffic originate from Plovdiv”, a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs says. The force structure close to VIS has international involvement and acquires more and more markets in Italy.

“Latterly in the traffic are involved persons that are not criminals and are not connected with recognizable criminal groups. The risk to be caught is lower”, a specialist from “Traffic of people” Department in National Service for Fight with the Organized Criminality says. The organizations that settle prostitutes in Italy are some kind of floating criminal structure. When a problem appears they disappear like an itinerant theatre. At the moment entire pimps’ groups from Vratza, Plovdiv and Pleven regions redirect their activities from Italy to Spain. They think in the native country of Lorca more vivid money turns and that they can assure themselves anonymity.

Another

The Bulgarian pimps in Italy often challenge their superiority.

They dispute for money and girls, but they do not come to a straightforward war. “If there is an insoluble drama with a pimp or a prostitute just a secret and silent clearance starts”, a high level policeman from the Ministry observes. “The guilty people just disappear. We can not track the pimps and the prostitutes that have vanished without a trace!” he adds. The bold guy - culturist from Vratza falls into the unknown two years ago. In Italy the pimp stays to a friend from his native region. They are also dealing with prostitutes. One day The bold guy vanishes without a trace. His closest friend The Manikin comes back to Vratza. He wears The bold’s clothes but he claim he does not know nothing about him. Policemen investigated the case suspect The bold guy is dead. An information from the police shows he has tried to blackmail bosses of a famous group from Vratza that acts in Italy.

After two years tour in Italy Daniela The Skull comes back to her native town of Pazardjik. It is 2000 year. She lands successfully in the country after her pimps are detained in a police action near Milan. The Skull gets away with it. Italian investigators assign a task to their Bulgarian examining magistrates to interrogate her as a witness.

Daniela testifies. They’ve beaten her, they’ve given her drugs, they’ve maltreated her, she has passed through all the phases of the life on the street. In the beginning she steals, afterwards she becomes a prostitute. She

Madam Stone Heart

The organizations for traffic of girls consist of recruiting people, transporting people, distributors and pimps. Most of our prostitutes in Italy can call their pimp by his/her little name or a nickname. They are under a permanent supervision of so called guardians who have a key role in the organizations. As usual the tutoresses educate the girls in the secrets of the quick sex. They control them and they took their money. The majority of the Bulgarian madams are “exported” as prostitutes when they’ve been 15-16 years old. Twenty of them are bosses of the new work forces, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs say.

In May this year Mariana the trainee from Varna town received a three year suspended sentence

At the moment she appeals the verdict of the court in Genua. Mariana A. is involved into one of the most scandalous cases with Bulgarian traders of flesh in Italy. In 2000 policemen in Genua arrest Mariana, four Bulgarian and three Italians and accuse them in procuring, force bending to prostitution and illegal traffic of people. “Each one of the members in the criminal group had strictly fixed functions. The trainee has trained them how to behave with the clients and what kind of trick to put into practice to them.”, our cop in Italy gives a wink.

She has collected the money and she was responsible for the fundings of the net. The trainee has

Maltreated and humiliated the girls,

in the presence of guards. At that time she is 27 years old. Ten years earlier she is exported from Bulgaria as a prostitute. Her greatest love is the money. She rarely moves, but the girls call her Madam Stone Heart.

The trainee has ruthlessly tormented one Bulgarian girl. During a check up policemen get the prostitute on the street without papers. She tells them everything. The cops watch the group. They caught how the trainee rents accommodations with the assistance of some Italians. The trainee rents accommodations by publishing announcements in the newspapers about the services she offers – massages, escort, introductions. In the announcements she mentions contact details – mobile telephone numbers. The Italian cops bring to a bay multiple visits of one and the same Bulgarian in Genua. They bring girls with busses. All the girls involved in the net are run away form the problems provoked by the social bottom they are positioned in their native countries. They descend from poor families in Sliven, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Yambol. One of the prostitutes is recruited after a hard drinking in a jerry-shop in Central railway station subway. The trainee treated them as “a cheap meat”. The girls have taken up to 25-30 EURO for a sex on the street. For the same service inside the accommodation the price is 50-75 EURO. In this case three Bulgarian pimps are sentence to 7 year in prison. At the moment they are appealing the verdicts. Two Italians receive 5 year each one of them. Later the sentenced are changed to probation and some financial penalties. Some of the 10^th girls that are witnesses in this case today are in Bulgaria. Some others live in Italy. They deal with hotel and restaurant management. “They are under the protection of the Italian state”, a Bulgarian policeman in Italy explains. There is a special law for repented ones. If you testify and become a witness against the organizers, the state issues you a temporal document for a citizenship.

In special programs the girls learn languages and trades. They find them work and the girls start to write their new biographies.

The tentacles of the devil-fish

The Albanian mafia controls the pimps in Italy

Hundreds millions EURO turn in the business with flesh

The business with flesh in Italy is under the control of the Albanian mafia. The Albanian mafia storms in the maximum capacity since it replaced the Turkish groups in the drug market. The Albanian mafia in Italy is specialized in the drug traffic and robberies. They knit the nets of prostitution together with the Italian organized criminality. These groups ravenously “absorb” the East-European structures in the state of the boot. The Bulgarian criminal groups have misunderstandings with the Albanians in Italy. This finds expression in beatings of our prostitutes and pimps. Often Albanian pimps force Bulgarian girls to work for them. This is the reason why the Bulgarian pimps pay them voluntarily to assure themselves a protection on the street. In many cases the Bulgarian white slaves are sold to Albanians.

At the speed of

the pimps transfer from hand to hand. As long as the price of the girls drop catastrophically up to the price of several cups of whisky. Often the traces of the sex slaves are lost; they are scrubbed by exploitation and sale. Unless they do not walk into the trap of a police action and accept to testify against the pimps.

The Romanian mafia also manages prostitutes together with the Albanians. In Italy the mafia guys from our Northern neighboring country are fighting for the leading position in the traffic of white slaves, pickpockets and illegal immigrants. The Bulgarian often cooperates with the Albanian and the Romanians in the field of traffic of prostitutes and pickpockets through Kosovo, Tirana and Bucharest. Italy is the Mecca of the groups from Nigeria as well,

who are also on the first position when we are talking about the business with flesh. The blue-black pimps conquer as bee hives the state of the boot. The Nigerian bodyguards control the street business with faked branded sun glasses, hand bags, watches and accessories. This position allows them to supervise the black skin temptress at the sidewalks. The Chinese mafia in Italy is also occupied with prostitution, robberies, blackmailing kidnapping for ransom money.

For best organized in the business with flesh are nominated the Russian and the Ukrainian groups. They are kings when it comes to the money laundry.

“Most of the pimps’ net in Italy have points of intersection. The majority of prostitution nets are under the control of Nigeria, Albania, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova.

They are transferring from one place to another hundreds millions of EURO annually”, policemen comment.

When a Bulgarian prostitute receives a black stamp in her passport she is redirected to Paris or Madrid. Places where a big markets for flesh are located. When a girl enters the net, her owner can sell her in Sarajevo, Madrid, Amsterdam. On an international level the Albanians hold a big portion of the market, because there are situated the biggest market-place for white slaves. In Italy the Russian mafia wears velvet gloves and is dealing with more elite things such as money laundry and different kind of financial combinations and affairs.

“The violence is a common practice and it is ethnically defined in the style of the groups of pimps acting in Italy.”, a source form “Save the children” organization says. The methods of exploitation and the tortures originate form the customs of the people, their religion and traditions. The Chinese pimps are popular with their inhumanity.

They clean-shave the girls, they lock in them into a claustrophobic basements. They beat them and they put them to a physiological terror. The Chinese girls – they prick them with needles to pull out their energy. Damnations! The specialists in these violent practices among the Chinese are the women. The Nigerians use the religion in order to manipulate their victims psychically. They use totems and voodoo-necromancies. They throw

Prostitutes’ dolls with their images pricked with needles. They photograph them naked and thus they steel their soles. When the prostitute made a big offence they castrate her by cutting her clitoris. The Albanians are famous like the most ferocious – they threaten the prostitutes to kill their relatives implacably. Sometimes they set on fire the houses of the guilty prostitutes. It happens to kill their close relatives. As an extreme measure they kill the prostitute – for edification to the other girls.

“Recently the Bulgarian and the Romanian pimps unfortunately copy the Albanian style.”, from “Save the children” organization say. But a little while ago their propriety was the vulgar deeds reflected in the movies of the late socialism such as scandals with under-vest with sex, f…..g, grape brandy, garlic and Serbian pop folk. Down the last years they threaten the relatives of the prostitutes as well. There are cases of arsons and fires of relative in Bulgaria.

“Many girls from Bulgaria become subject of the white slavery right at the moment of their arrival here. Now they are less than before, but till year 2000 the country was full of them.”, priest John Benzi, a chairman of “Papa Giovanni 23” organization says. This organization saves victims from their pimps.

“They were a lot. At the moment there are just 5 Bulgarian prostitutes, saved by us. From 1996 till 2000 they were many more than now.

It stats in 2002 and lasts till 2003. This action is provoked by the civil discontent against the prostitutes, who flood the streets of the Italian towns. The official state reaction is “Clean streets” campaign. There are actions in almost all towns where there are prostitutes. In 2002 the Italian authorities pointedly are trying to stop the traffic of white slaves. In April and March in different parts of the country the police arrests dozens of pimps and trafficants of girls, forced to be a prostitutes. Members of these bands very often are dealing with other type of activity as well – thefts or drug trade.

40 people were arrested on March 29 in the Northern region Lombardi with administrative center Milan. In Verona 17 white slaves from Romania and Moldova are “set free”. They told us how they were enticed with promises for work as waitresses in Italy. Afterwards they’ve been beaten, raped and forced to prostitute. 36 Albanians were arrested by the police in Modena. They were accused of exploitation of girls from Eastern Europe who were delivered to prostitute in Torino, Bolognia, Ferara and Mantua. Similar actions the police carry out in Rome and Sicilia. The cases of cruelties and murders are very frequent. On 26 April in a garbage-can 21 years-old girl is found. She is killed.

In year 2001 in Torino a band consisted of 4 Bulgarians is revealed. The men have enticed girls from Sofia, Sandanski and other towns from the country by promising them a legal job in Italy. In March 2002 29 years-old Bulgarian declares at the police in Milan she was kidnapped and forced to prostitutes by another Bulgarian woman and two Albanians, arrested later on…

3-4 years ago there were prostitutes in Rimini as well, but the Russian girls flown the market and occupied it.

Peskara

In unexpected police check up on the street becomes clear that one Bulgarian girl has no papers. They set her free. With special intelligence devices the cops start to watch the girl. It becomes clear that this group delivers new and new girls at regular periods of time. These are suitcase with money. One manages to drag out, another is effectively sentences and put into jail. Third one slips out and now is in Milan, Italy. The one of the pimps is from Plovdiv – he is shingled and he has a good physic. A check up is made if the group is connected with Vanko 1, but it turns out that they have nothing in common. Dimitar is in prison.

At the end of May 2003 after one year investigation the police arrests 25 Bulgarian citizens. They are pimps and their victims. A trial is about to start. The girls have prostituted on the seaside street Ponte Lungo. Five pimps and 15 girls. Most of them were in a full knowledge of the fact they come to Italy to prostitute. The action is part of “Clean streets” action that is carried out all over Italy. After the action an operation for the investigation of 10 Bulgarians starts. They are accused in

organizing traffic of prostitutes in Peskara.

They are in Bulgaria. Three of them are women and they succeed to avoid the arrest during “Sofia” operation. In this action policemen in Peskara arrest two Bulgarians – 33 years-old Jivko Krumov from Sofia and 30 years-old Dimitar Ivanov from Sofia. Three more Italians are arrested together with them. The arrested are still in the prison in Peskara town, but the trial against them will be held in the administrative center Kieti. They are accused of participating in a criminal group for trade with young girls forced to become prostitutes, traffic of illegal immigrants, sexual violence. For the traffic of people the Italian legislation enacts from 8 up to 20 years in prison. The preliminary investigations of the Italian authorities leaded to the arrests of 13 Bulgarians and 4 Italians has started eight months prior the action. This happens after two Bulgarian sisters’ confesses. They’ve been in an immigration centre and later they’ve been extradited to Bulgaria. They tell the police that they’ve come to work in Italy as housemaids. Instead they’ve been cooped up, beaten, raped and forced to prostitute after their pimps threaten them to revenge to their close relative in Bulgaria. According to the disclosure made by the police the criminal net was managed by two Bulgarians – twins, later traced by Interpol. They are accused of the heaviest accusations – reducing to the status of slavery and group rape of five girls. One of them is 15 years-old. She is sold to another group for 3000 EURO. The twin has mocked like animals with the Bulgarian girls. They were held under lock and key, totally isolated, till the moment their will is bended and they become prostitutes.

After they come to Italy, their pimps take them away their real passports. The Italian involved in the net used to place apartments at their disposal. The girls have prostituted there during the day. At night they used to take them to the seaside street of Peskara. There they’ve continued their sex marathon till the break of the day. Furthermore they give them mobile phones to take them under control. Two of the 10^th girls are 16 years-old. They were holding them almost like prisoners in apartments at Franfilla al Mare. They’ve prostituted under the strict supervision of three Bulgarian women playing the role of their pimps. Except being bosses they also were forced to make sex for money. They are accused of complicity. They transferred the money to Bulgaria using Western Union services. The Italian woman an owner of the apartment has received 40 percent of the profit. The police action against them is carried with 30 policemen and 20 cars.

The problem with the prostitution in Italy is hard to be solved. In January 2002 the Prime Minister Silvio Berluskoni proposes the brothels to be reopened. In 1958 they were banned with a law. Berlusconi explains his idea with the fact that the state would have a bigger control over these activities if they are legalized. The idea though is received with demonstration on the streets.

For already ten years the white slaves are supported by “Pope Ioan 23” the Catholic organization, leaded by Don Oreste Benzi. So far he has saved 3000 girls from the trap of the prostitution, and has sheltered them to social homes and communes. In last January – 2001 at his meeting with Berlusconi, when he wants a bill who bends the street prostitution, he takes along with him two 14 years-old girls – a Bulgarian and an Ukrainian. Berlusconi gives as a present to each one of them 5 thousands marks. The priest states that the number of the girls forced to be prostitutes in Italy is approximately 60 thousands. A big part of them are under-aged.

In 2002 in Italy there are four cases of arrests of Bulgarian pimps. On December 10, 2002 two Bulgarians and a woman from our part of the country, used to be a prostitute before to become a pimp. They are …

Till 1998-1999 Rimini is the hottest point of the prostitution in Italy. Over 4000 hotels are full of holiday-makers in the height of the season. The Bulgarian prostitutes flood the resorts in Rimini with the irresistibility of overflowed artificial lake.

In Rimini had been full of criminal factors and elements from South-Eastern Europe. In Riminia and Bolognia the first actions against the prostitution are held. When “Clean Streets” operation starts the Russian and the Ukrainian mafia dominate the region. In addition to the prostitution in Italy they are dealing with money laundry and blackmail for money. After the actions the Russian and the Ukrainian mafia are pushed out to Neapol. The luxury prostitutes start to go for a stroll in Richone – one of the most expensive resorts in Italy.

Till 1999 Rimini is a mini model of the prostitution in Italy. For several month only in “Clean streets” operation 800 prostitutes form Nigeria, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia and Albania are detained in the state of the boot. More than 650 pimps are put into the prison for just one night. 440 of them are from Nigeria. In Nigeria – voodoo magic and fires… “A terrific effect for the girls produced the fact that they’ve seen their pimps arrested… The most well organized net for exploitation of prostitutes in Italy is the Ukrainian one. This is because the level of corruption there has reached the highest levels of the power. This way the pimps in Italy are also the persons responsible for money laundering operation who transfer huge amounts of money. They are tolerated in their countries. Dozens of girls start to speak during the police actions. They become witnesses against their pimps. They are usually saved by different types of organizations.”, Gian Pierro says. “We used to hide the prostitutes in communes and in different houses. Other prostitutes used to come pretending they want to repent, but actually they spied for the pimps. They obviously wanted to know where we are hiding the girls and to try to take them back under their control. In this moment the police stepped in and we had no further problems. The prostitutes who spied were arrested.”, he adds.

“The majority of the girls we saved during the actions were put to a inhuman torture. Their pimps had beaten them with bats and metal pipes. The bodies of some of the girls were marked with scars form cigarettes. Some infections from pegs putted under their nails were still visible. Others were branded. We had seen stamps with the names of the owners, paid the price of the prostitute.”, a criminologist from the police administration in Rimini says.
”Two Albanians run away to us. The girls were devastated.”, Gian Pietyro from “Papa Giovanni 23” organization says. “As an example to the others, their pimps had fired their houses and they had killed their families.”, he adds. “The cops in Rimini still remember with horror the story of one Albanian prostitute, a victim of an incredible terror. In addition to all humiliations, she has went through, she was cruelly branded.”, Gian Pietyro from “Papa Giovanni 23” organization tells. “Six from her Albanian pimps, who had resold to one another were whittled down with a knife their names at the most sensitive places of her triangle. The scars were incurable.”

In spite of the actions the bars in Rimini are full of Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian and Albanian girls who are listed as attractive dancers. The truth is that when they are not at work they prostitute, but nobody can prove this. “Their contracts are in order.”, police sources from Rimini say. “Two months ago many bars in the resort were locked by the police. We though did not arrest anybody because no direct evidences for prostitution were found. Their papers show they are dancers and actresses, but at night time they are making sex for money in secret accommodations.”, the cops add.

Around 30-35 organizations in Italy are working to save the girls. Usually they are afraid. But the cars of these organizations cross the highways in the morning between 7.30 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. at the placed where the girls are waiting their clients. The most exploited one commonly scream for help.

At the moment the situation with the prostitute net in Italy is changing dynamically.

The number of prostitutes in Rome is very much reduced after the police actions. At the expense of this there are many Bulgarian, Romanian and Albanian girls who prostitute in apartments all over the city. They come here for three months, than go back and come again. Most of them have fictitious contracts for waitresses, dancers, actresses, illusionists. They pretend to work in the places of the resort but after their working time finishes they start to prostitute. “They have iron alibis and we can not touch them.”, a policeman from Rome says for “168 hours” weekly.

From 2002 - 2003 the criminal contingent had sent to the bottom and is not so worrying. The sexual exploitation passes through several schemes. The first one is with publishing announcements in the newspapers for finding of a seasonal work for three or four months. Usually this is an agricultural work. According to the legislation one years permits for a legal stay in Italy is issued for study, marriage and work. Using this possibility the pimps bring the girls saying they will work in Italy. Then she pays her hotel room but at the moment she is out of cash they start to pay her hotel bill. During the travel they’ve taken her away her passport and afterwards she can not refuse anything. They do not accept “No” as an answer. Then she goes to the police, after to the embassy. “Let’s do not lie ourselves, many Bulgarian girls are coming here exactly for this.”, a source from the police says. Two years ago the Italian police make a mass comp-out. Since then they can not been seen like before … In Rome they first presented on Kristofor Colombo, Campis Portivi, Aurelia boulevards. The street business starts to decline. First “Clean streets” campaign is announced. It starts approximately two years ago with mass manhunts. Almost all Bulgarian girls without documents are expulsed. The operation lasts for 2-3 weeks. The alarm is raised for almost all kinds of police forces – carabineers, the financial Guards the state police. Then huge Bulgarian groups are expulsed for offences against the law. Among the putted to the sword are Russian, Latin American and Romanian girls.

In 1958 the brothels in Italy are banned on the insistence of the Vatican. The new law states the prostitutes does not come within the provisions of the law. For traffic of women though the sentence is 20 year in prison.

The new law though permits the prostitutions in the apartments. The association of the home councils makes a firm stand against this decision – a conflict with the private property. The moralists are activated. In towns like Venice and Maestre, full of prostitutes, the mayors take extreme measures such as fees for the people talking to a prostitute. They sent them the fine at home and they start to protest their right for privacy is violated.

The Bulgarian Xaviera Hollander

The ex escort girl makes a spectacle after San Remo festival. She is introduced as an image expert of the celebrities. Her book with memoirs is published by “Montadori” publishing house. Mishel Boneff was born in 1971 in Sofia. Her book is called “Rootless trees”. Today she lives in Italy and USA. In her book she is presented as: a model, an actress, an image adviser of the celebrities from the movie, TV and music industry. In 2003

Gypsies…

Last year 6 gypsy children from Vratza, Vidin and Pleven were sold in Italy. Their documents for taking out were notary certified with the signatures of their parents. The kids were sold in an Italian nomad camps. As a gypsy tradition they were sold to become brides. Very often thought their husbands forced them to make money – either as prostitutes or as pickpockets.

A case is going on in Vratza for a gypsy pimp, exported 6 under-aged prostitutes in Italy. He had sold them for 7-8000 EURO and divided equally the money with their parents. They though are dissatisfied with the amounts received. They look for assistance in the police and announce the children for investigation.

“Many under-aged girls from Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and Albania come here. Usually the children from Bulgaria we save are with a gypsy origin. Their parents had sold them to rich families. They live in a nomad camps with fires. Part of them become pickpockets, other are forced by their new owners to become prostitutes.”, Manuela from “Save the children” organization says.