On June 7, 2024, a 24-year-old aspiring actress showed up at an apartment on Via Francesco Sforza, a ritzy street that loops around Milan’s historic city center. She was there for what she was told would be a promotional video for a gynecology practice called Centro Clinica Italia.
The actress had no reason to be nervous. She’d found the listing on a casting Web site, and the job was advertised as straightforward: a “public-facing medical-educational video” that would describe how routine procedures took place. The listing promised between $166 and $555 for a few hours’ work.
