Its like the telly innit

There’s a fascinating story going on in Italy at the moment, which has yet to be picked up by the foreign press.  And it could be vast….

Heres what happened, though it only came out a couple of days ago.

On the 16 October the personal accountant of Berlusconi was ‘kidnapped’ in his house by a gang of 3 Italians and 3 Albanians who had been following him for 2 months.   This gent is called Spinelli – which is the same name as a ciggie of waccybaccy in Italy – though amusing it has nothing to do with the story.  Spinelli, however, is the man charged with visting the Olgettine – the many and various girls who live at the expense of Mr B in his flats in Milano 2.  As is appearing in court at the moment, Uncle Steptoe pays these girls 2500 euro a month, each – and gives them a flat – so its fair to say that Spinelli has his hands full.

Ostensibly we are led to believe that the kidnap was more to do with the huge 500+ million euro fine Berlo has had to pay on behalf of Mondadori (his publishing house) for a grubby affair of price fixing with rival publishers.  It seems that thekidnappers have a folder of info that would be very interesting for Mr B, and the price of this folder was to be 35 million euros.

From here on it gets complicated – but bear with me.

Firstly they were released with no problems

Secondly the crime was reported only 24 hours after it all finished.  Berlusconi cancelled all his appointments and closeted himself in his mansion.  Finally after it was all denounced to the police an inquiry was opened, run by Boccassini – the famous magistrate who is a B’s throat over Rubygate.  Indeed the following day Berlo and Bocca met and it was all handshakes and airkissing.   So thus far we have Mr Toad on trial for abuse of power and child prostitution, with the judge also dealing with a case of supposed kidnapping and blackmail… all in teh previous 24 hours…   I told you it would get more interesting.

So, anyway, a month on and the baddies have been caught – they have a safe deposit box in Switzerland which supposedly houses the file of info – its only full of fake banknotes though..

One hypothesis is that Uncle Steptoe paid out 8 million to get the baddies out of the way, though its all denied.  It is a crime to pay out for blackmail in Italy.

Another is that the info that could come out – seeing as Spinelli knows about Berlo’s girls – would be enough to get a guilty as hell verdict in the Rubygate trial.

So Mr Toad is now locked in Arcore, cancelling meetings and not a happy man.  He seems to think that it will all be twisted to indict him, instead of he being the injured party.  Il Giornale  – the Berlusconi paper, claims there is a plot to get Berlusconi, and he will be a suspect instead of a victim.

Given the Italian passion  for indietrologia – behindology – where a dark corrupt force is presumed to be behind anything,  these new events are giving the journalists and gossips a banquet at the trough.  Dispassionate we may be, but you cant help being curious to see what will come out of it all.