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On the afternoon of 9 May, the officers of the Caserta Traffic Police, near km 720 along the southern carriageway of the A1 motorway, in the Casagiove area, noticed the driving behavior carried out by the driver of a car traveling at speed sustained and carried out numerous overtakings, creating danger for road users. It was subsequently ascertained that the same car had also been reported as a suspicious car and in use by individuals dedicated to committing fraud against the elderly.
During the check, the two occupants of the vehicle, both with multiple convictions for crimes against property, were particularly intolerant of police control. This attitude led the officers to carry out more careful checks which allowed them to find, hidden in the clothing of one of the two arrested men, various gold jewelery worth over 6 thousand euros as well as, hidden inside a jacket, the sum of 425 euros cash. In relation to the gold jewelery found and the sum of money found, for which the two subjects were unable to provide explanations regarding the real origin, further investigations were carried out which allowed the Traffic Police to verify that they had reached the province of Florence, precisely the municipality of Barberino Tavarnelle, in Val di Pesa, where, at 1.30 pm in the early afternoon, an aggravated fraud was committed against an 81-year-old woman.
Thanks to the synergy between the police personnel and the Carabinieri of Barberino Tavarnelle, the elderly victim was traced who, dazed and shocked by what had happened, reported to the military that she had been deceived by an elusive “marshal of the carabinieri”, who, after having contacted her home telephone number, asking her for money in cash or gold in order to remedy the position of her son who had been falsely involved in a road accident shortly before. The victim, after having handed over the money to the fake marshal, asked his relatives for information, from whom he ascertained that his son had not been involved in any road accident, therefore realizing that he had been the victim of a scam, then immediately reporting the facts to the Carabinieri of the local station.
The investigative activities made it possible to collect serious indications of criminality against those arrested in relation to the identified fraud which allowed them to be reported, while under arrest, for the crime of aggravated fraud committed in that city. The stolen goods found were seized pending their return to the victim.
