ROME, (Reuters) – Italian police yesterday arrested Federica Gagliardi, a woman who acted as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s secretary at two international summits in Canada in 2010, on suspicion of smuggling 24 kg of cocaine on a flight from Venezuela.
Gagliardi, who is in her early 30s, was taken into custody at Rome’s Fiumicino airport shortly after arriving on a flight from Caracas after police found the drugs in her carry-on luggage, a finance police spokesman said.
Officials provided no further details, but according to Italy’s anti-drug police estimates the local street value of 24 kg of pure cocaine, after it is cut with other substances to be sold on, would be about 6.7 million euros ($13.21 million).
