Italian police have arrested 20 gladiator impersonators in an undercover sting aimed at ending a violent racket operating around Rome's most famous tourist sites, Italian press reported on Thursday.
Police disguised as gladiators, dustbin men and members of the public raided the gang made up of seven families working with five tourist agencies.
The modern gladiators are accused of attacking and intimidating competitors for a lucrative business in which gladiators collect up to 10 euros ($14) for having their picture taken alongside tourists in front of attractions.
The police officers disguised as gladiators were beaten up by the alleged criminal gladiators before other undercover officers swooped in.
"Gladiators" are a feature of the Roman landscape for tourists, with men decked out in bright red capes, helmets with plumes of red feathers and sandals while carrying swords and round shields.
They can be found outside the Colosseum, Castel Sant'Angelo, Piazza Venezia and even in front of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, preying on the millions of tourists who pass through Rome every year.
Criminal gangs had divided up these tourist sights and were defending their territory with violence, the police said.
Five competitors who had been chased away alerted police to the gang's activities, leading to the sting operation.
[An Nahar] La Belle France on Thursday said it had summoned the Ukrainian ambassador in Gay Paree to express its "serious concern" over the arrest of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
The envoy was told that La Belle France would continue to follow very closely the developments in the case that saw Tymoshenko's arrest on Friday for contempt of court in her abuse of power trial, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.
He was told of "the serious concern generated by the detention of Mrs. Yulia Tymoshenko and more generally of the progress of (her) trial," spokeswoman Christine Fages told news hounds.
Tymoshenko risks being locked away for up to 10 years if convicted for abuse of power over gas deals she signed with Russia in 2009.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and the United States have been sharply critical of her arrest, saying it raised concerns about the rule of law in Ukraine.
Tymoshenko on Wednesday bitterly accused her prosecutors of being agents of a "machine of repression" against opposition to President Viktor Yanukovych.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] 
