* Some 100 young girls suspected of belonging to gang
* Ringleader, 58, arrested in Italy; 17 others being held
* Girls scoop 12,000 euros (${esc.dollar}16,000) a day, four mln a year
By Nicholas Vinocur
PARIS, Dec 3 (Reuters) - French police have broken up a large European network of pickpockets, mostly girls from the Balkans aged between 12 and 16, and who all gave their name as "Hamidovic" when arrested, the Paris prosecutor said on Friday.
Prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said the network of some 100 girls was the largest of its type ever encountered in France, accounting for about half of all cases of pickpocketing in the Paris underground metro system since 2008.
The girls were forced to undergo extensive training before being put to work. They faced the threat of violence and rape if they did not deliver on daily earnings quotas starting at 300 euros, the prosecutor said.
"If you did not meet the daily objectives, you would be hit with fists and weapons, burnt, even raped," he said.
Police rounded up 18 of the gang's male ringleaders in a series of stings in the south of France and Italy, including its 58-year-old Bosnian ringleader. They face charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to human trafficking to rape and barbarity.
Marin and Paris judicial police chief Christian Flaesch said the operation was the result of a two-year investigation which uncovered a deeply entrenched and "patriarchal" power structure, a code of conduct and well-oiled techniques for stealing from tourists in Paris and other European cities.
"We have the feeling of having broken up a completely medieval (gang) structure," Flaesch told journalists.
Male leaders mostly kept their distance from the pickpockets, leaving the task of overseeing them to hardened female handlers who lived with them in Parisian hotels. Occasionally, male bosses would stop by to collect cash.
"From the victims' perspective, there is less fear when facing a female than a male," Marin said when asked why the gang relied so heavily on female pickpockets.
Police suspect the gang's top members were members of the same family. Many of the girls were sold into the gang's service by their parents, and those most capable of stealing money could be traded or promoted while others were reduced to begging.
The two-year investigation was slow as the girls were trained to tell police they were 12 years old -- an age at which criminal prosecution is difficult in France -- and refused to have their photo taken or provide any physical evidence.
If convicted, the ringleaders could face long jail terms. The boss could serve up to 22 years, France's longest prison sentence. However, none of the underaged pickpockets face criminal charges, Marin said.
"They are placed in shelters but after a few hours and a shower, they get up and leave, disappear," he added. (Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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