Police in Italy have smashed a criminal network exploiting hundreds of children from impoverished families in Bulgaria by forcing them to work as modern-day Oliver Twists.
The children, aged from nine, were sent out to beg on the streets and trained to pickpocket passengers on buses and subways.
Investigators said the youngsters were beaten or threatened if they did not fulfil their daily quota and were "relegated to the status of mere objects," after their families rented them out to the gang in exchange for a share in the profits or an immediate cash sum.
In one case, officers in Venice came across a 13-year-old girl who was eight months' pregnant.
"The group took advantage of the fact that a child under 14 cannot be arrested in Italy," a Carabinieri official, Gabriele Passarotto, said.
Charges against the alleged members of the network include enslavement, drug trafficking and facilitating illegal immigration -- activities allegedly financed by the thefts. Some 41 Bulgarians have been arrested so far, with another 75 people also under investigation.
Police, who carried out the two-year investigation with the Bulgarian authorities, said they also found evidence of sexual exploitation after undercover officers were offered the chance to buy young girls to be used as prostitutes.
Some children were also compelled to act as couriers carrying drugs, false passports and other documentation.
Officers described the investigation as "difficult and complicated." Some infiltrated the gang while other members of the investigation teams kept suspects under surveillance for months in Italy, Bulgaria, Germany and Austria. Investigators said they had been able to reconstruct the "modus operandi" of the criminal network, which comprised at least 116 people.
Many of the children were taken from their homes and brought to Trieste, the gateway city to Italy for eastern European countries such as Bulgaria. They were accommodated in apartments or campsites, out of sight of social services or police, and transported into cities to work 10 or 12-hour days. As well as being fed, clothed and housed they were moved every few months to avoid detection.
The money was sent back through money transfer companies such as Western Union. Profits were also transferred to the gang leaders in Bulgaria.
Details of the investigation -- codenamed Elvis Bulgaria -- were revealed in Trieste in a press conference attended by Piero Grasso, Italy's chief prosecutor of organized crime. "The exploitation of children is a worldwide problem," said Grasso. "This is a phenomenon that we must fight to overcome because the crimes against innocent children are crimes against humanity."
News of the arrests was welcomed by Professor Ernesto Caffo, president of the European Society of Child Psychiatrists and the head of Telefono Azzurro, a helpline for exploited children. He said: "Every day the public sees children begging ... they think that they live with their own families, but many of them are being used as instruments by adults that they barely know."
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