A prostitution ring linked to alleged corruption in the awarding of public works contracts for the G8 summit in Italy involved as many as 350 women, investigating magistrates have revealed.
The apparent scale of the "sex for favours" affair, which was previously said to involve three or four women, has added a further blow to the centre-Right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.
Investigators said that they had intercepted telephone calls and uncovered other evidence which proved that the women involved in the G8 corruption investigation, had been paid about 700 euros for encounters at private parties and apartments across Italy, with some charging 5,000 euros.
The call girls, who were Russians, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, Brazilians and Cubans as well as Italians, were allegedly supplied to public works officials by businessmen bidding for lucrative contracts linked to the G8 summit, including allegedly Diego Anemone, a Rome building contractor, who is under arrest on suspicion of corruption.
Berlusconi initially planned the G8 summit for Sardinia, where a summit complex was erected at a cost of 600 million euros, but he later moved the venue to L'Aquila to express solidarity with the victims of the Abruzzo earthquake last April, at a further cost of 327 million euros.
The planning was entrusted to Guido Bertolaso, head of the Civil Protection Agency and the Prime Minister's right-hand man, who was placed under investigation last month after magistrates said tapped phone conversations suggested that he had received sexual favours disguised as massages at a Rome health and sports centre.