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Italian police have made four arrests related to a luxury prostitution ring that catered to dozens of high-profile clients, including a Formula 1 driver, 70 professional soccer players, hockey players, celebrities, and business people.
Numerous celebrities, including several Serie A soccer players, are among the many affluent clients of an event planning company in Milan that has been accused of operating as a front for an escort service in the city’s trendiest neighborhoods.
The escort service advertised on Instagram
According to Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, the services were advertised on Instagram, on a page followed by many Serie A players. Although the authorities have removed their names from the warrant and they are not the subject of a criminal investigation, players from Italian teams, including Inter Milan, AC Milan, and Juventus, allegedly paid the company more than $227,000 via bank transfer.
An unidentified Formula 1 driver also allegedly utilized the company’s services. Authorities made a wiretapped conversation between the driver’s associate and the escort service public. In it, the associate asks, “I have a friend who is a Formula 1 driver, and he wants a paid girlfriend. Can we find her?”
In another wiretapped conversation, a woman informed the agency that she was pregnant after spending an evening with a “well-known footballer.”
The escort service used more than 100 girls
According to prosecutors, the suspects used more than 100 girls, both Italian and foreign, many of whom were available as escorts. The suspects who were arrested allegedly “focused their business on recruiting women willing to participate in the events organized and ready to also provide sexual services, subsequently remunerated, for a particularly wealthy clientele willing to spend large sums.”
Police arrested and charged the owners of the events company, a man and a woman, and two of their employees with exploitation, aiding and abetting prostitution, and money laundering. The police also seized $1.3 million, according to Metro.