Berlusconi: is Ruby the Heart Stealer using your money in Mexico and Dubai?

Friday, 28 March 2014. According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica Berlusconi's favourite night dancer Karima El Mahroug (aka Ruby the Heart Stealer) has started a new life, taking expensive holidays, developing a luxury resort in Mexico and investing in property in the Middle East. Where did she get the money from?

Karima El Mahroug – aka Ruby the Heart Stealer – is a young former erotic dancer (she is now 21) who took part in the bunga-bunga parties in Berlusconi's villa in Arcore and who is believed to have had sex with the owner of the manor in 2010 when she was still under-age (and Mr Berlusconi was sentenced to a 7-year term in jail for having slept with her and for having used his power as Italy's prime minister to try and hide the story).

Ruby the Heart Stealer (real name Karima El-Mahroug) having pretty good time in Mexico (Playa del Carmen's beach)

Now, in 2010 the prosecutors in charge with the sex scandal trial (the result of the so-called Rubygate investigation) intercepted a phone conversation when Ruby – talking to a friend – said that she had received €5 million from the billionaire (which is roughly £4.1m or $6.9).

Later on the Moroccan erotic dancer (and call-girl, if you listen to Milan's judges), said that all that stuff (and other stuff she had been telling the judges) was just a made-up show off and she had been “talking crap”, and so on.

Berlusconi and Ruby the Heartstealer 2.0

Fri, 28 June 2013. A minor branch of the sex scandal trial gravitating to stripper Karima El Mahroug approaches its end and new leaks about Mr Berlusconi's bunga-bunga nights might come to light, as well as other details about women, girls and others.

Mr Berlusconi's associate Lele Mora relaxing

The main branch of the trail that followed the rubygate inquiry ended a few days ago when the former prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to 7 years in prison (pending appeal, of course) for child prostitution and abuse of power, but there is a secondary branch of the proceeding – dubbed Ruby 2 or Ruby bis - where three persons are accused of pimping on behalf of Mr Berlusconi,

The three characters – for whom Prosecution demand a 7-year sentence to each and everyone - are a model-politician, Nicole Minetti, a journalist-politician, Emilio Fede, and a showbiz agent-bankrupt manager-bisexual dope pusher, Lele Mora. They are accused of recruiting, testing and keep the females needed for the bunga-bunga parties.

Berlusconi, how easy is to mistake “true love” for “sex for money”?

Friday, 7 June, 2013. At the Ruby 2 trial Nicole Minetti denies having had “sex for money” and reveals that it was “true love” if she was hosted by Silvio Berlusconi at his villa(s), and reveals unprecedented “media aggression followed by a wave of scorn” against her.

Nicole Minetti in court 

On 31 May prosecutors hinted that Nicole Minetti had being “performing sexual acts for money” in Silvio Berlusconi's villa(s), apparently with the former prime minister, during a trial – dubbed Ruby 2, from the name of the main character involved and because the Ruby #1 is the trial against Silvio himself – where Nicole is a defendant, together with Lele Mora and Emilio Fede.

Nicole Minetti is charged with “induction into prostitution”, as a organiser of bunga-bunga parties and recruiter of prostitutes (among them under-age belly dancer Karima El Mahroug aka Ruby the Heartstealer, nickname that dubbed the related proceedings).

Proceedings are slowed down by many obstacles, Karima El Mahroug numerous lies didn't help much. but proceedings are always slow in Italy, aren't they?

Prosecution asked for a 7-year sentence.

Berlusconi and Ruby, the lying stripper

Fri, 24 May, 2013. Testifying as a witness at the a trial were three individuals are charged for favouring prostitution, Moroccan stripper Karima El Mahroug (aka Ruby the Heartstealer says she was “talking crap” when she gave away details of spicy parties at Silvio Berlusconi's villa."

Me a prostitute? If not a saint, I might be a nun!

Ruby Rubacuori (Italian for Heartstealer) appeared on the trial (which is already a news, she sometimes forget about it...) where former TV presenter (and Berlusconi's friend, at least before he got dramatically fired by Mediaset, in 2012) Emilio Fede, celebrity agent Lele Mora and Nicole Minetti, a former Lombardy local councillor, model and showgirl are accused of supplying prostitutes to Mr Berlusconi's so-called "bunga-bunga" festive evenings in his villa in Arcore. Nicole said she had been hanging around just because she was the one and only girlefriend of the media millionaire.

Silvio Berlusconi's protégé Karima-Ruby says she is not a prostitute (though others seem to think otherwise)

Rubygate: who knows the truth
and who's interested in it?

Thursday, 4 April, 2013. Silvio Berlusconi's favourite belly dancer (and alleged prostitute) Ruby the Heart Stealer holds an emotional protest in front of Milan's tribunal (and raises angry reaction from other bunga-bunga women).

“The Ruby case: Are you not interested in the truth any more?” read on the signed carried by the curvaceous Ruby the Heartstealer (real name: Karima El Mahroug) as the young Moroccan staged a protest (this time properly dressed up) by reading a statement to the journalists. 

Prosecutors state that Ruby had paid sex with Silvio Berlusconi when she was 17, and the billionaire is also accused of having abused of his position as prime minister, when he intervened with police after Karima was arrested because she was accused of stealing money from a friend.

Silvio Berlusconi and the socks of the judges

Thursday, December 20, 2012. Silvio Berlusconi-s owned gossip magazine attempts to delegitimize a magistrate looking into sex-scandal trial by denigrate her socks. It's not the first time they resort to this extreme measure, Italian judges should pay more attention to the colour of their socks, experts say.

Ilda Boccassini doing work

The prosecutor in charge of the Rubygate – a case in which Silvio Berlusconi is indicted for having given money to under-age Karima el Mahroug (aka Ruby the Heart Stealer) – has appeared on a photo shoot on Berlusconi's Mondadori-owned “Chi” weekly magazine, a gossip newspaper.

Judge Ilda Boccassini is an old enemy of Berlusconi's, since she took over the place of Antonio Di Pietro, back in 1994, in the “Mani pulite” (“Clean hands”) investigation.

Silvio and Ilda met up in several occasions, since.

Ilda Boccassini doing shopping

The gossip weekly portrays the judge as she goes shopping in the centre of Milan, adding captions in order to deride the magistrate. A list of her cloths is published, where “multi-coloured striped wool socks”, costing 21 euro, are exhibited and undrlined in order – somehow – to belittle the judge. Another photo shows Ilda Boccassini dropping the butt of a cigarette to the ground. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and Rai3 news service accused the media outlet of "hounding" the judge.

A similar technique was used by Canale5 broadcaster staff in 2009, when they hounded judge Raimondo Mesiano, who ordered to Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest to pay 750 million euro (£612m) to Carlo De Benedetti's – arch-enemy of The Knight – CIR, as a compensation in the frame of the Lodo Mondadori, a battle between the two Italian entrepreneurs following the acquisition of publisher Arnoldo Mondadori Editore by Fininvest. Mr Mesiano was followed by the broadcaster's men, his turquoise-coloured socks were exposed as a major offence.

Ruby rebuilding her virginity with Chi's Alfonso Signorini

By the way, the weekly magazine we started this post with is owned by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA (company chaired by Silvio's daughter, Maria Elvira Berlusconi, commonly known as Marina Berlusconi). The paper is also known for having published topless photos of Kate Middleton earlier this year, and a picture of prnicess Diana, taken as she was dying, after a car accident on 31 August 1997. The Director of “Chi”, Alfonso Signorini, was in charge also when Mediaset (on Canale 5's Kalispéra TV show) tried to prove that Ruby the Heart Stealer was – in reality – a kind of vocational nun, not a prostitute.

The Rubygate trial is going to continue on 4 February, after the last session – in which key witness and name giver for the investigation Karima el Mahroug (aka Ruby the Heart Stealer) was missing – was adjourned.

Obviously Silvio thinks that the best defence is a good offence.

Socks on the right...

Silvio Berlusconi and the eagerly awaited sex-scandal trial

Wednesday, April 6 2011. The first session of the Silvio Berlusconi's Rubygate trial has been adjourned, after 15 minutes.

Do you know how trials work in Italy? The so-called “Rubygate” proceedings are a good example of that. Silvio Berlusconi is accused of having paid an under-age prostitute for her services, namely Karima El Mahroug, aka Ruby Rubacuori (Italian for "Ruby Heartstealer", the nom de guerre of the girl). Other women were believed to have received money for the same reason, but they were adults, and that's not a crime in Italy (I mean: it's not a crime to give money in exchange for sex to women above 18).

Court and press

The first hearings were due for on 6 April. The build-up was huge. An extensive international press coverage was set-up. Outside of the fascist-era court building in Milan an assemblage people gathered: curious folks, Berlusconi tireless haters and fans.