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If they don't come for the culture they come for the food or the evocative religious ceremonies

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If they don't come for the culture they come for the food or the evocative religious ceremonies. Crowds of Italian and foreign visitors negotiate the narrow cobbled streets of the medieval city centre, and despite a stiff breeze, the outdoor caf?along the elegant Corso Vannucci are humming. Alongside a stylishly casual Italian family and some German art historians sits a swarthy aggressively handsome man speaking heavily accented Italian to his companion, a dyed blonde woman in her early forties who looks Eastern European. "One more word out of you and I'll smash your face in," he says fiercely. "You know what happened to the others."Such an unpleasant exchange in such a picturesque spot could normally be written off as a sheer fluke. Except that it comes just a few days after Perugia police dismantled a powerful criminal network operating a prostitution and drugs ring that turned over more than 2bn lire (£660,000) per month. More than 100 people were arrested for trafficking in human beings, running prostitution and drug dealing. Most of them were Italian ­ many belonging to the Neapolitan or Calabrian mafia ­ and Albanian gangsters.

Among those arrested was Marco Presciutti, a promising welterweight boxer and local sporting hero. Six night clubs in Perugia and nearby towns were closed down and nine apartments were confiscated.The operation, codenamed Girasole, (sunflower) recalls the picture-postcard images of immense fields of sunflowers but reveals the ugly underbelly of Perugia, one of Italy's most prosperous and well-administered cultural cities. While traffic in women is hardly new, what Girasole has exposed is that many of the women who rebelled against their fate were killed. In true mafia tradition, so as not to attract unnecessary attention, their corpses simply disappeared. The women, mainly from Eastern Europe but also North Africa and Colombia, were brought to Italy with promises of jobs as waitresses and au pairs. Before they got here, they were systematically raped and tortured to break down their resistance."It's difficult to prove but there are at least eight cases in which women may have met this end," said Antonella Duchini, the anti-mafia magistrate heading the inquiry.The other girls said they were there one day and gone the next and there were vague allusions to "ending up like her".It all began last July when the body of Tania Bogus, a 20-year-old Russian, was found battered to death with a hammer in woods near Perugia Police say her assassins were preparing to bury her. The cooperation of many of the former "slaves" has been vital for the investigators.

A new law approved last year provides protection, financial assistance and gives the girls and women the chance to build a new life if they denounce the criminals who have exploited them. A dedicated "anti-slave" line has received an average of 4,000 calls per month since it started in November.Captain Daniele Galimberti, deputy chief of the Carabinieri regional special squad, says the inquiry has shed light on a new figure in the criminal world, known as "the impresario"."They procure the girls from Eastern Europe, with promises of proper jobs, or even by kidnapping them and get them into Italy by whatever means. Each impresario has his territory, Moldavia, the Ukraine, Kosovo, just like business reps, and they earn off these girls for the rest of their working lives."The going rate for a prostitute is 10 million lire (£3,300). According to the local Corriere dell'Umbria: "The clubs were a sort of training school for prostitution. Once they had grasped the fundamentals of entertaining men and were earning well they were sold on to Albanian gangs and put to work in much tougher conditions on the streets." For the 160,000 residents of Perugia, Italy's chocolate capital, the operation has been a bitter surprise. Yet locals only have to drive around Perugia's modern outskirts late at night to see a thriving sex trade.Last year Gianni Carnevale, the Perugia police chief, caused a furore when he authorised the confiscation of the vehicles of clients of prostitutes. Italian law does not punish prostitution itself, just those who encourage it, namely the pimps.

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