A MONTH after a football scandal showed Italians the rot at the heart of their national sport, the country watched in amazement over the weekend as a fresh scandal involving prostitution and corruption enveloped the son of the last King.

Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, who was banned from setting foot in Italy until three years ago, is in jail in the southern city of Potenza.

On the basis of a two-year investigation by local prosecutors, he is accused of using his influence with the authorities to lubricate business deals involving illegal gambling machines. He was also allegedly involved in procuring Eastern European prostitutes for a northern Italian casino.

Weekend newspapers published wiretaps detailing his conversations with associates and personal dealings with prostitutes, and photographs of him pocketing what investigators said was a €10,000 reward for helping to secure a licence for 400 video poker machines.

In one conversation, the prince tells an associate to “give a good slapping” to a woman who apparently took €500 off him and failed to perform her duties properly. He is also heard arranging for his car not to be searched when he crosses the Swiss-Italian border one night last November.

The 2,000-page prosecutor’s dossier says that he was the “undisputed leader” of a group that used his high-level contacts to do deals worth millions of euros. Ten other people, including the mayor of Campione d’Italia and a Sicilian entrepreneur with alleged Mafia links, have also been arrested.

The inquiry focuses on the casino in Campione d’Italia, an Italian enclave just inside Switzerland. Vittorio Emanuele, who has spent much of his life among the Swiss jet set, was a frequent visitor. He and Italian associates reportedly struck a deal with the casino to help attract clients, and came up with the idea of a “complete package”, including sex, for the gambling élite, investigators claim.

Vittorio Emanuele, who is to face a preliminary hearings judge tomorrow, says that he is innocent. It was “probably a gigantic misunderstanding”, he told lawyers. “I don’t need to rent out whores to third parties for €2,000 a night.”

Vittorio Emanuele’s son, Emanuele Filiberto, said: “He’s a just, good man who has always worked for the good of Italy and Italians and this is how he is thanked. It’s a disgrace.” However, Emanuele Filberto is also caught up in the investigation. He is accused of helping to sabotage websites denigrating his family.

Vittorio Emanuele, who was 9 when Italy became a republic and the Royal Family was banished in 1946 for collaborating with Mussolini and fleeing the invading German Army, is no stranger to controversy. In 1989 he was involved in a shooting incident on a yacht off Corsica in which a 19-year-old German died. He was eventually cleared of manslaughter by a Paris court after several trials. In 1997 he refused to apologise for laws against Jews signed by his grandfather in 1938.

CAUGHT ON TAPE: THE CONVERSATIONS THAT LED TO A JAIL CELL

A conversation with the Venetian businessman Ugo Bonazza

VE I’m going to Milan . . . and I’ve got three quarters of an hour now . . . I wanted to go to a whore . . . to go again to . . . what was her name?

Bonazza Alice, Alice. [supplies the address]. She’s there, ring the bell, number 18, where it says “Yoga”, you remember?

VE I’ll give her €200 and no more, eh?

Bonazza No no, you don’t have to give her anything. Just a wave, a little kiss. Tell her I’ll sort it out later.

A second conversation with Bonazza

Bonazza Look, if I can just have a little word about work. I need you to introduce me to . . . or if you could talk to a general, here, in the Tax Police, because there’s a big deal, business, big, big, big . . .

VE What do you want? Who do you want? A Carabiniere or someone in the tax police?

Bonazza Tax police, tax police.

VE OK, no problem.

Talking to an unknown interlocutor:

VE: I wanted to know if our friend is going to be at the frontier on Thursday . . . he’ll let me through. How much do I owe you? 900,000? OK, we’ll sort out the bill when I see you.

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