14 people, mainly Brazilians, were arrested on suspicion of running the organization and another 17 alleged male prostitutes for being in Spain illegally. A police official said he did not know if the male prostitutes serviced men or women (My guess is male))
The men were recruited in Brazil and saddled with debts of up to euro4,000 ($5,000) as the cost of bringing them to Spain. Some were duped into thinking legitimate jobs awaited them; others knew they would be working in the sex industry, but not that they had to be available for sex around the clock and would be moved from one province to another.
“Put On Some Music, Swallow A Viagra, And Adelante!”
That’s the headline in Europe today following redports that One of Pope Benedict’s ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St Peter’s Basilica have been implicated in a gay prostitution ring, in the latest sexual scandal to taint the Vatican.
Among four people arrested last month in the corruption probe was Angelo Balducci, a engineer who is a board member of Italy’s public works department and a construction consultant to the Vatican. Balducci was arrested on corruption charges and the allegatons of prostitution emerged only later.
Balducci is also a member of an elite group called “Gentlemen of His Holiness”, ushers who are called to serve in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on major occasions such as when the pope receives heads of state or presides at big events.
“Gentlemen of His Holiness””carried the coffin of the late Pope John Paul at his funeral in 2005.
Excerpts of the wiretaps and police documents published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica showed that Ehiem, 40, had been in regular contact with Balducci before Balducci’s arrest last month and the subject of their conversation was gay sex.
A police document prepared for magistrates and published in part by La Repubblica said Balducci was in contact with Ehiem and an Italian who were part of what the police called “an organised network … to abet male prostitution”.
