RAVENNA: The petrol pump arsonist under house arrest in psychiatry

In recent days, agents of the Anti-Crime Division of the Bologna Police Headquarters carried out a preventive seizure on various articles – including five hundred watches, jewels and precious stones, cash, paintings, musical instruments, archaeological finds including a mammoth fossil – of the value of approximately 6 million euros. The preventive measure, proposed to the Court of Bologna prevention measures section by the prosecutor and the police commissioner, was adopted against a 70-year-old pensioner from Bologna who had accumulated this wealth, preserved in his homes in the city and in the Marche, discovered by the Flying Squad in March 2023 and made known in the ‘Aurum’ operation. He had been reported at liberty for receiving stolen goods; a large part of the goods, according to what was ascertained by the investigations, were probably the proceeds of thefts, scams and muggings committed over the last twenty years. The pensioner, a professional with no criminal record, according to the Flying Squad agents, would have purchased the goods directly from the perpetrators of the ‘hits’. He would not have done it to resell it, but out of pure passion for collecting and accumulating these objects. “This assets – explains the manager of the Anti-Crime Division of the Police Headquarters, Francesco Costantini – was totally in excess of the income he could have on a monthly basis. This is one of the reasons why the anti-mafia legislation, 159 of 2011, allows the prevention measure of asset seizure. In this case the prevention procedure went hand in hand with the criminal one which, currently, has not yet been concluded. The relevant legislation provides that, in this case, the preventive seizure as an asset measure prevails over the criminal one “.