Stelu's story was contradicted by the girls' statement Stelu asked me to bring him a teddy bear. This would have been a simple, man-to-man transaction, if Stelu was not a convicted criminal, serving an eight-year sentence for trafficking girls to Italy. In fact the cuddly toy was a first birthday present for his baby son, whom his wife was due to bring to see him two weeks later. The prison where Stelu is serving his sentence, in Craiova in southern Romania, was purpose-built in the s.
The buildings are low, the cells packed, three bunks deep, three bunks high, 50 to 60 men to a room. I was so naive It cannot have helped his case in court that he looks like a man of physical, rather than verbal power. I left her in Italy They describe Stelu as a violent criminal, who not only trafficked many girls to Italy, but also organised pick-pocketing rings in Spain.
The judge believed the written evidence of the girls against him. We went in search of the girls, in the run-down suburbs of Craiova. All are in Italy now. It was impossible to hear their versions. In a village near Buzau, in eastern Romania, Alexa and her friend Alina proved more accessible. They used to work in a village shop, for 1. Promises of work Two boys, Dani and Tavi, started visiting them there, chatting them up.
They said they could get them work, one as a waitress, another as a housekeeper, in Bologna. The girls jumped at the chance. The prison in Craiova was built in the 19th Century So many Romanians work abroad - more than three million, or one in seven of the population. They thought they would be lucky. Of course, they had heard of trafficking. But they did not think it could happen to them.
They even introduced the boys to their parents. As soon as they got off the bus in Bologna, things started to go wrong. A Romanian woman called Ana confronted them with some bad news. The only way to work off their debts, they were told, was to work on the street. They were never left alone. Suicide attempts When Alina was suspected by another girl of not handing over all the money she received, she was beaten by her Albanian owners for three days. So far, we have not reached the big fish - the coordinators of the criminal networks Alexandru Jonas Centre for Combating Organised Crime After several suicide attempts, Alexa managed to trick her guards and fled.
