A HIV-positive man who might have consciously passed on the deadly virus to more than 200 sexual partners has been arrested in Italy.
A spokesman for police in Ancona, a city on Italy’s eastern Adriatic coast, told dpa on Thursday that 35-year-old Claudio Pinti had been arrested two days earlier.
Despite having been diagnosed “for at least 11 years,’’ he did not take precautions nor warn his partners about his condition, Ancona police said in a written statement.
When officers apprehended him, Pinti declared himself a “negationist’’ on the existence of HIV, police said.
The virus is known to cause AIDS.
In a press conference on Wednesday, police said Pinti was a regular user of dating websites and might have infected more than 200 people.
He was caught after one of his most recent partners checked herself into hospital after feeling ill and discovered she had contracted the virus.
The woman who made him end up behind bars, in Montacuto prison, has more or less the same age. They met and met again last December, after the disappearance of his partner. It's cute and nice as I remembered, she immediately thinks.
The fact that he became a "widower" so young, with an 8-year-old girl to grow up, also touches her. They start dating, she often reaches him at her house, in Montecarotto, where he moved after the mourning.
The relationship is born naturally, between cuddles and caresses. In March, however, accuses the first illness (fever and frequent sore throat) and a common friend warns her: "You know that Claudio has HIV?".
The world collapses on him. He takes the test and starts the nightmare: she is HIV-positive too. May 5 find the courage to go to the police and tell everything. Thus begins the investigation that has allowed us to unveil the story of Claudio Pinti, 35 years, as a good boy but in fact "serial untor".
Over two hundred unprotected sex in eleven years since he became HIV positive. Yesterday afternoon, agents of the Central Operations and Mobile Service of Ancona, on the order of the investigating judge, arrested him.
Profession trafficker, a profession that for some time was hardly more boastful (even on Facebook, where yesterday was the subject of various attacks) professional experiences as "trader", as if investing money online, Pinti actually used the network to look for women and men with whom to have sex without precautions.
His ex who denounced him burst into tears if you think about how, candidly, it was justified when you put it on hold: "Yes, once I was HIV-positive but then I redid the exams and nothing happened. Hiv does not exist, it's a bale, it's drugs that kill you. "
A way to deny the evidence too. «To believe that HIV does not determine AIDS is one of the most dangerous fake news, which has already claimed many victims», underlines Marcello Tavio, director of the infectious diseases division of the Torrette di Ancona hospital and vice-president of the Italian Infectious Diseases Society and tropical.
It was he who made the first test of Pinti's girlfriend and submitted it to the «therapy that, today, can practically freeze the virus». Being HIV-positive is much more dangerous if you do not care. While the risk of infection is almost zeroed by drugs.
Authorities urged potential victims to contact police, and in a breach of usual practice, released a picture of the suspect so people who could recognise him.
The police spokesman said several calls have come in and are being verified.
“People are very reluctant to come forward because of the shame,’’ he said.
Thanks to medical advances, life expectancy for HIV and AIDS patients has greatly increased in recent years, but the disease still killed one million people in 2016, according to the World Health Organisation.
In a similar case in 2017, a Rome court sentenced a man to 24 years’ imprisonment for infecting more than 30 people with HIV, including a pregnant woman who passed on the disease to her son.