Silvio Berlusconi duped Italians for years

But for the genitalia of the women of the Caucasus, the whole improbable adventure might never have happened. Becoming one of the world’s richest men; creating a political party from nothing in less than a year; and going on to become the Italian Republic’s longest-serving prime minister.

It all went back to his conversation on the train with the hostile vice-president of a pension fund. He desperately needed this man to invest in his first big construction project. His original ploy—getting relatives to pretend they were clamouring for the apartments he had built near an industrial complex outside Milan—had gone embarrassingly wrong. The pension-fund boss had realised he was being duped. But then the 27-year-old Silvio Berlusconi deployed his irresistible charm, seduced the vice-president’s secretary, persuaded her to tell him when her boss was next travelling to Milan and booked the seat opposite.