Police uncover £1m prostitution ring involving 70 footballers and an F1 driver

Police in Italy have arrested four people and seized €1.2 million (£1m) after uncovering a prostitution ring which was used by over 70 footballers and a Formula 1 driver.

An event planning company in Milan is accused of being a front for an escort service in the city’s most fashionable neighbourhoods and has been found with a long list of wealthy clients including celebrities and Serie A footballers.

Players from Italian top-flight clubs including Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus are said to have paid over €194,000 (£168,000) to the company via bank transfer, however, their names have been redacted from the warrant and they are not under criminal investigation.

An unnamed F1 driver is also alleged to have used the agency, with Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport revealing a conversation from a wiretap between an associate of the driver and the agency.

‘I have a friend who is a Formula 1 driver and he wants a paid girlfriend. Can we find her?’ the person asked.

‘I’ll send him the Brazilian,’ was the reply.

Another wiretap conversation revealed that one woman told a person working for the agency that she was pregnant three weeks after spending an evening with a ‘well-known footballer’.

Further wiretap conversations between those working for the agency revealed that nitrous oxide, the recreational drug referred to as laughing gas, was requested by clients at the parties.

The owners of the events company, a man and a woman, and two of their employees, have been placed under house arrest. They have been charged with exploitation, aiding and abetting prostitution, and money laundering. Finance police have seized €1.2m (£1m).

According to the prosecution, the suspects ‘had focused their business on recruiting women willing to participate in the events organised and ready to also provide sexual services, subsequently remunerated, for a particularly wealthy clientele willing to spend large sums’.

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