Voodoo rites failed to keep police from busting a prostitution racket operating here in northern Italy, police reported on Wednesday.
The organization was run by 33-year-old Maurizio Armelau, a resident of Trento, and his 36-year-old partner Cecilia Rosario Diaz, a native of the Dominican Republic.
The pair are accused of renting out two apartments by the day which were then used by transsexuals and Columbian female prostitutes to entertain their clients.
The couple are believed to have made an average of between 300 and 700 euros a day by subletting the flats, investigators said.
According to police reports, Diaz apparently suspected she was under investigation and the apartments under surveillance and so she contacted a witch doctor in her native Colombia for help.
The witch doctor was said to have issued curses against the investigators, while the apartments were 'protected' by a number of voodoo symbols placed in and around the flats.
These included pans and bowls of rice, candles and images of saints.
However, in the end voodoo was not as strong as the arm of the law.