Network fabricated evidence and made children believe they had been abused in adoption scheme worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
Italian police have arrested 18 people, including a mayor, social workers and psychologists for allegedly “brainwashing” children into believing their parents had abused them, in a scheme to take them away from their families and sell them to foster parents.
Authorities in the central Italian city of Reggio Emilia revealed how a network of carers allegedly used hours of psychotherapy sessions and electroshocks to convince children their parents had sexually abused them and “alter their memory ahead of the trials”, Italy’s Ansa news agency reports.
They then allegedly sold the children on to friends and acquaintances in a scheme worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
The investigations, codenamed “Angels and Demons”, started in the summer of 2018 after police received a series of reports of wrongdoing that initially proved false.
The 18 arrested include Andrea Carletti, mayor of Bibbiano, a town of about 10,000 near Reggio Emilia, as well as politicians, doctors, social workers and psychologists.
The network initially fabricated false reports to take children away from disadvantaged families. Then they proceeded to convince the children that they had indeed been abused.
In an episode reported by Italian newspaper La Repubblica, a girl said she couldn’t remember why she couldn’t see her father anymore.
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