Berlusconi’s ghost hunting down the Italian government amid international chaos
Is Italy once again the land of Bunga Bunga? So it seems when reckoning with what the investigation by Il Fatto Quotidiano has uncovered since its very first articles, by journalist Thomas Mackinson, on the case that’s shaking the government and the institutions alike. The Quirinal Palace itself is implicated. But let’s rewind the tape from the beginning.
On April 11, 2026, the investigative television program Mi Manda Raitre, aired by the state broadcaster, RAI, broke the news on the pardon granted by the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, to Nicole Minetti, Silvio Berlusconi’s former dental hygienist who rose under his wing to become a regional councilor in Milan. Investigative journalist Floriana Bulfon uncovered it live on the show, and that same day Il Fatto began digging deeper into the story and sought confirmation from Minetti herself, who preferred not to respond.
Before becoming a counselor, Nicole Minet worked as a dancer in a TV show aired on Berlusconi’s media conglomerate, Mediaset SpA. She is known for her central role in the so-called Rubygate, a sex-party scandal starring the late former Prime Minister, who passed away in 2023.
Minetti was previously sentenced to 2 years and 10 months for exploiting prostitution, and 1 year and 1 month for embezzlement in her public role on the Milan city council: 19,000 euros of public funds spent on costs unrelated to institutional activities. In total, 3 years and 11 months—terms that in Italy don’t lead to prison but to community social services instead.
The Ruby Case remains a pivotal judicial affair amid the scandals involving Silvio Berlusconi, with some investigative threads still ongoing. In the 2010–2023 Italian legal scandal Berlusconi was accused of paying for sex with 17 years old Karima El Mahroug (“Ruby the Heart Stealer”), and abusing power to cover it up. Initially convicted in 2013, Berlusconi was acquitted in 2023 of bribery charges, ending years of legal battles.
During the Ruby trial, various wiretaps emerged portraying Minetti as a true “Madame” who organized parties for Silvio, procuring girls for his dinners. Prostitution was among the services provided by these young women, according to prosecutors. In Italy, they’re known as the Olgettine, because the former premier rented or bought apartments for several of them on a Milan street by that name. From then on, the former dental hygienist has become the female symbol of that dissolute and corrupt Italy.
Fifteen years later, however, during the pardon application procedure by Minetti’s lawyer, Antonella Calcaterra, a new profile of Mrs. Minetti emerges, out of a life rebuilt away from politics, integrated into an international economic context. By her side is her partner, entrepreneur Giuseppe Cipriani Jr., active for decades between Europe and Uruguay, son of the renowned Arrigo Cipriani, who founded the iconic Harry’s Bar in Venice. The Cipriani empire, especially through Cipriani Jr.’s work, has since expanded globally across the United States, Europe, and Latin America. In 2024, the Minetti-Cipriani couple moved to Milan with their adopted son, whom Cipriani met through his charitable activities in Uruguay hosting children from a juvenile institute. And in Milan, according to the documents, Minetti was carrying out community service activities as required by her sentence.
On February 18, 2026, Minetti was pardoned by President Sergio Mattarella, but the Quirinal Palace decided not to announce it, contrary to what is customary, because according to the President’s staff the pardon referenced a minor. At that time, however, Italy—and the government in particular—was embroiled in a fierce campaign on the justice reform, which Premier Giorgia Meloni and her Justice Minister Carlo Nordio lost in March 2026. Needless to say, news like this wouldn’t have been well-received. RAI brought it to light, breaking the silence.
Before becoming a counselor, Nicole Minet worked as a dancer in a TV show aired on Berlusconi’s media conglomerate, Mediaset SpA. She is known for her central role in the so-called Rubygate, a sex-party scandal starring the late former Prime Minister, who passed away in 2023.
Minetti was previously sentenced to 2 years and 10 months for exploiting prostitution, and 1 year and 1 month for embezzlement in her public role on the Milan city council: 19,000 euros of public funds spent on costs unrelated to institutional activities. In total, 3 years and 11 months—terms that in Italy don’t lead to prison but to community social services instead.
The Ruby Case remains a pivotal judicial affair amid the scandals involving Silvio Berlusconi, with some investigative threads still ongoing. In the 2010–2023 Italian legal scandal Berlusconi was accused of paying for sex with 17 years old Karima El Mahroug (“Ruby the Heart Stealer”), and abusing power to cover it up. Initially convicted in 2013, Berlusconi was acquitted in 2023 of bribery charges, ending years of legal battles.
During the Ruby trial, various wiretaps emerged portraying Minetti as a true “Madame” who organized parties for Silvio, procuring girls for his dinners. Prostitution was among the services provided by these young women, according to prosecutors. In Italy, they’re known as the Olgettine, because the former premier rented or bought apartments for several of them on a Milan street by that name. From then on, the former dental hygienist has become the female symbol of that dissolute and corrupt Italy.
Fifteen years later, however, during the pardon application procedure by Minetti’s lawyer, Antonella Calcaterra, a new profile of Mrs. Minetti emerges, out of a life rebuilt away from politics, integrated into an international economic context. By her side is her partner, entrepreneur Giuseppe Cipriani Jr., active for decades between Europe and Uruguay, son of the renowned Arrigo Cipriani, who founded the iconic Harry’s Bar in Venice. The Cipriani empire, especially through Cipriani Jr.’s work, has since expanded globally across the United States, Europe, and Latin America. In 2024, the Minetti-Cipriani couple moved to Milan with their adopted son, whom Cipriani met through his charitable activities in Uruguay hosting children from a juvenile institute. And in Milan, according to the documents, Minetti was carrying out community service activities as required by her sentence.
On February 18, 2026, Minetti was pardoned by President Sergio Mattarella, but the Quirinal Palace decided not to announce it, contrary to what is customary, because according to the President’s staff the pardon referenced a minor. At that time, however, Italy—and the government in particular—was embroiled in a fierce campaign on the justice reform, which Premier Giorgia Meloni and her Justice Minister Carlo Nordio lost in March 2026. Needless to say, news like this wouldn’t have been well-received. Rai brought it to light, breaking the silence.
After the first teaser of the pardon news on April 11 came out, the Quirinal issued a statement explaining that the granting was based “also on the serious health conditions of a close minor family member of Minetti, who requires special assistance and care at highly specialized hospitals.” A pardon is a measure by which a specific person’s sentence is fully or partially remitted, or replaced with a lighter one. It can be requested by the convicted person or those close to them: the application is addressed to the President but submitted to the Minister of Justice. This opens up a procedure to evaluate the request, starting with an investigative phase.
On April 25, Il Fatto Quotidiano published a two-part investigative report that dismantled the lifestyle Minetti had declared in her pardon application to the President, digging into an underworld of horrors and irregularities surrounding the Minetti-Cipriani couple. On top of all that, the newspaper revealed questionable Cipriani’s connections and close relationship with the pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. These are facts that, had the judicial authority and the ministry itself verified them beforehand, would have invalidated the request and would never have won Mattarella’s pardon.
In the last few hours, furthermore, other details have emerged. According to the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, Cipriani was involved in corruption schemes allegedly linked to the Italian-American mafia, among which the Gambino family. Also, according to Il Fatto’s investigation, Nicole Minetti was not just the partner of an Italian billionaire. She was the person who managed access for call girls, selecting them and pulling the strings of meetings with wealthy figures who frequented Cipriani’s ranch estate. “Ella sabe” (“She knows”), a source told the journalist. “She knew everything.” In short, the very same role for which she had been convicted in Italy.
According to the facts gathered by Il Fatto’s journalist, Cipriani used a local juvenile institute as a daytime cover, inviting the orphaned children to eat at his estate. It was from that orphanage that the couple would adopt a very ill child, taking him away from another couple who were in the running for the adoption. The child’s biological parents lived in conditions of extreme poverty, and the lawyer representing them, Mercedes Nieto, appeared calcinated (allegedly burned alive), alongside her husband, in Garzón, Uruguay. A homicide investigation is underway after these two deaths. Meanwhile, the child’s biological mother, María de los Ángeles González Colinet, has been reported missing, triggering investigations by local authorities.
As far as Cipriani’s relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is concerned, the files published by the American Department of Justice (DOJ) in January 2026 reveal how, in 2010, the New York restaurateur was in constant search of money to expand his empire and had asked Epstein for an £800,000 loan. In those weeks, the company Refifi Ltd was created (later known as 15a Hay Hill), and a club was opened in London’s Mayfair. In the end, the money transfer certifying the loan is missing, but one of the files concerning this episode establishes that there were difficulties for Epstein to legally carry out that transfer. An email from Christy Reuter, a name that has appeared in broader investigations into Epstein’s financial network, to Darren Indyke, one of the primary executors of Epstein’s estate and long-serving lawyer, suggests another way though:
Epstein was without any doubts a guest of Cipriani in Uruguay, as the DOJ files also reveal.
On April 27, after the exclusive by Il Fatto had already spread across all media, including international outlets like Reuters and the BBC, the Quirinal wrote to the Ministry of Justice to request checks on what had been brought to light by the press, making the request public via their official social media. From that moment on, responsibilities were tossed back and forth between the ministry and the judiciary, which in the meantime had undertaken a whole series of investigations—also through Interpol—aimed at verifying what had been published.
On April 30, meanwhile, the Uruguayan website Montevideo Portal, dedicated an article to the investigation, quoting sources close to the case to report that several relevant elements arose regarding the deaths of the lawyer and her husband. According to Montevideo Portal, while a report submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office by the fire department concluded that it was “an accident,” a crime scene analysis commissioned by the defense for the victims’ family “established that it could be a double murder.” The authorities have reportedly decided not to archive the investigations, partly due to the conditions in which the victims’ bodies were found, the site further claims.
Therefore, the justice front continues to be a source of headaches for the government. Just as Meloni is attempting to get back on track after the debacle of the referendum, she finds herself having to deal with the fallout from the case of the pardon granted to a former showgirl, i.e. Nicole Minetti. The affair, beyond the results, could have inevitable implications for the role of the Ministry of Justice. In the same hours in which the Minetti case exploded, moreover, the Milan public prosecutor’s office announced the indictment of Marcello Dell’Utri, founder of the Forza Italia political party, for 42 million euros received from Berlusconi since 2012, when Dell’Utri was waiting to know if he would be convicted for external complicity in mafia association (as later happened).
The heart of the political issue rests entirely in the hands of Minister Carlo Nordio, who had already been criticized for several issues he mismanaged, such as the decision to repatriate Libyan warlord Osama Najim, wanted by the International Criminal Court, or that of his chief of staff who was forced to resign, or that of his undersecretary, who was also forced to pack his bags for good. Notwithstanding the fact that also a former minister, Daniela Santanché, was forced to leave, under the shadow of judicial problems.
Regarding the Minetti-Cipriani case, as if the turmoil surrounding Nordi wasn’t enough, new allegations have surfaced against the minister, brought by journalist Sigfrido Ranucci from RAI’s investigative program Report. While hosted by a TV show on Rete4, a television channel operated by Mediaset, Ranucci said that Carlo Nordio was seen at Giuseppe Cipriani and Nicole Minetti’s ranch in Uruguay in an unspecified March month. But the Justice Minister himself called into the show to deny everything and pledge legal action for defamation. “I’m also thinking about legal action because there’s a limit to everything, even this moral and media degradation.” Ranucci immediately specified: “We are verifying the news.”
As far as can be verified by the author of this article, in March 2025 minister Nordio was traveling in Uruguay to attend the inauguration ceremony of Uruguay’s elected president Yamandu Orsi. The Italian Minister of Justice was in Uruguay from March 1st to 3rd, before continuing his trip in Latin America with the next stop in Argentina. The pardon procedure for Minetti began in July 2025, and according to the neswpaper La Repubblica, in December of the same year, it accelerated under pressure from the ministry led by Nordio on the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office, which was conducting the basic verifications and subsequently gave its positive opinion on the pardon in great haste.
Following the allegations made by Sigfrido Ranucci against Nordio while hosted by Rete4, RAI sent him a letter of reprimand saying they were “not verified”. The letter further clarifies that no legal protection will be provided should the Minister of Justice take legal action. On May 3, some news agencies as well as the newspaper Il Foglio (which until 2015 was financed by the Berlusconi family) revealed that the minister was determined to sue the journalist even though until now no formal paper reached Report’s newsroom.
In the compensation claim, according to Il Foglio, “reference will be made to the damage the dissemination of unverified news the Journalist made to the reputation and public image of the Minister of Justice, in violation of the Italian Journalists’ Code of Ethics, which requires journalists to verify the reliability of information before publishing it. Any amounts ultimately awarded as a result of the compensation action will be donated to charity”.
Ranucci’s reply came straightforward by announcing that in the event Justice Minister Carlo Nordio decides to press charges, he will not put the state broadcaster, which handles public funds, at any additional risk. “I will face the legal proceedings on my own” said the journalist, adding that “freedom of information is an inalienable value of humanity”.
Meanwhile, during the last show Report broadcasted on Sunday night, May 3, some questions were sent to Carlo Nordio through the Department of Justice, such as:
– How many times and on what occasions did you travel to Uruguay, both for official and personal reasons?
– What were the purposes of your visits to Uruguay?
– Who were the individuals or entities you met during your visits to Uruguay?
– Have you ever traveled to the area of Punta del Este?
– Have you ever met Arrigo or Giuseppe Jr. Cipriani?
– How many foreign missions have you carried out during the current legislative term, and which countries were involved?
Carlo Nordio formally replied to the questions confirming what we anticipated here, i.e. that he was in Uruguay during the early days of March 2025 “as major outlets have also reported” and confirming too his acquaintance with Cipriani’s father. The Justice Minister stated also that on May 3 he was already back to Italy. The author of this piece has verified though that, according to the precise reporting of Ansa news agency of those days, on May 3 Nordio was in Argentina instead, where he held a press conference together with President Milei.
Apparently minister Carlo Nordio or his staff read our piece published on May 2, since no mainstream media during these days had reported about his institutional trips to Uruguay and Argentina in the early days of March 2025.
If Italy has not returned to the land of Berlusconian “Bunga Bunga”, the ghosts of Silvio Berlusconi are very much present today, haunting Meloni’s political survival. Not to mention that the Italian prime minister had put so much effort—with quite a few tensions with the family members of the Berlusconi empire over the political line to adopt—into distancing herself from his phantom of power, corruption, and mafia influence, which also helped bring her to power by financing Fratelli d’Italia.
Simona Zecchi
