A Fun local attraction to take your Family while visiting Italy...

Woman, 19, forced to swim with piranhas at Circus

Police have closed down a circus in southern Italy after a terrified 19-year-old woman was forced to swim in a tank full of piranha fish while her younger sister endured the company of snakes and tarantulas.

Three men have been arrested and charged with holding the Bulgarian women in slavery and breaching international human rights conventions.

The trio, who are accused of running a "circus of horrors", were named as Enrico Raffaele Ingrassia, 57, the owner; his son William Ingrassia, 33; and his son-in-law, Gaetano Belfiore, 25.

The Marino Circus has been offering shows at Petina, south of Naples in southern Italy, in a tent with 200 plastic seats inside. An appalled spectator tipped off the police after seeing the show, in which Giusi, the 19-year-old, tried to escape from the piranha tank "trembling with terror". Her head was held down by Mr Ingrassia.

Her sister, Olga, 16, was bitten by snakes that she was forced to drape on her body, and she had injuries to her stomach where the snakes had wound themselves too tightly around her. The circus owners had rubbed ointment on snake bites on her legs but had refused to take her to a doctor. ( See they tried to help...)

Police said that the Bulgarian family had lived in the back of a cockroach-infested lorry used for animal transport. The only meat they had been given since January was in leftovers from the circus owners' Easter lunch last weekend. WOW....These guys were real Humanitarians......

The Bulgarian family has now been taken to "safe premises". Police said that the raid on the circus followed an undercover operation in which plain clothes officers took their families with them as cover and filmed the show as evidence. The arrested men had appeared surprised, they said, but made no attempt to justify their behaviour.