Rome barber-cum-brothel shut down
by Anthony Smith (staff) | Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Barber shop girl. (Evan Romine/Flickr, CC Lic.) Colosseum (Allerina & Glen MacLarty/Flickr, CC Lic.)
Police uncovered a barber’s shop with a difference in Piazza San Bernardo – after a cut and shave customers headed downstairs for an erotic massage… and more… with two east European prostitutes!
Appearing to be the classic Italian barber shop, the father and son business situated midway between Via XX Settembre and Piazza Barberini – not far from the US Embassy and la Dolce Vita on Via Veneto – offered a complete package that was anything but ‘traditional’.
Police say their suspicions were aroused after monitoring the barber’s shop and noticing that many customers appeared to enter and leave a half-hour later without so much as wash-and-go, never mind a short, back and sides.
During a raid on the premises officers burst in on a teenage Bulgarian prostitute engaged in sexual activity with a customer.
The two owners – a 72 year-old man from Catania, Sicily, and his son, also owner of an adjacent ladies hairdresser’s – have been charged with aiding and abetting prostitution, and exploiting prostitutes.
The raid coincided with a city-wide blitz on street hookers along Rome’s key thoroughfares (Appia, Salaria, Tiburtina, Marconi, Prati Fiscali) in line with the harsher stance on policing prostitution introduced this year by the mayor Gianni Alemanno.
December 23rd, 2009 at 19:31
it comes in handy to get a haircut then a massage. Makes sense!
March 19th, 2010 at 14:59
Why did you have to put some a trashy, cheap photo in an article about the sexual exploitation of teenage girls? not smart.