A British connection emerged on Monday in the police inquiry over Silvio Berlusconi’s infamous sex parties.
The Italian prime minister’s fixer was said to have flown in women from the UK to attend the debauched events.
They apparently included beautiful Venezuelan Carolina Marconi, 33, who has appeared many times on programmes produced by Berlusconi’s TV companies.
The British link was revealed in a file of more than 100 000 wiretaps which detail conversation between the politician and businessman Giampaolo Tarantini.
It shows that Tarantini spent almost £80 000 in nine months as he helped fix girls for 25 parties, buying plane tickets for flights from London and Paris to Rome.
From the documents it is not clear whether those from Britain were escorts or simply friends of women who were invited to the parties which Berlusconi hosted at his official residences in Rome, Milan and Sardinia.
In one transcript, Tarantini is heard telling Berlusconi: “Right, I have spoken with Carolina Marconi and she said she would be delighted (to attend a party).
“She is heading over from London and there is also a friend of mine from London, very beautiful, young, 21 years old.” Tarantini is said to have fixed the events between July 2008 and May 2009.
Besides flights, he also paid for chauffeur-driven cars to pick up the girls and laid on accommodation in five-star hotels. He would pay the women more than £4 000 a time - providing they spent the night with Berlusconi - and in addition the tycoon would give them cash and jewellery.
The transcripts have previously revealed that the 74-year-old premier boasted of sleeping with eight women in one night.
Tarantini is among eight suspects facing charges of procuring escorts for Berlusconi, as well as criminal conspiracy. Prostitution is not a crime in Italy but prosecutors say he was arranging the escorts so he could “obtain favours” for business contracts.
Tarantini faces a separate investigation into the supply of drugs. In a statement to police he admitted: “I thought women and cocaine was the best way to get myself into this social set.” - Daily Mail