They pose as policemen and lawyers to extort money and gold from elderly people. Last night the State Police arrested, carrying out the judicial police arrest, two young people, one of whom is a minor, of Campania origins, on the hypothesis of the crime of extortion committed against elderly people with the “fake carabiniere” technique ”.
The investigators of the Property Crimes Section and of the Hawks of the Flying Squad of Cagliari, in collaboration with the Carabinieri Company of Nuoro, carried out an intense investigation, undertaken thanks to the report received yesterday afternoon from the Security staff of the port of Cagliari, who immediately notified the police that a person had tested positive during the metal detector check.
The Mobile police officers immediately intervened in the control area and searched the boy, finding him in possession of a considerable quantity of gold jewelery and 7,500 euros in cash. The agents immediately suspected that they were objects and money of illicit origin, discovering, through the exchange of information with other investigative offices on the island, that two criminal episodes had been committed in the city of Nuoro that same morning. In particular, two elderly victims were forced to give up a significant sum of money and jewelery to people who showed up at their home, following telephone contact from a fake Carabiniere or Police Commissioner.
The technique is always the same: the victim is contacted on their landline or mobile phone number by a person who presents themselves as an authoritative person (lawyer, carabinieri or police commissioner) to inform them that their child has caused a serious road accident causing significant injuries to a pedestrian, under threat of certain imprisonment if she did not decide to give up her belongings. The elderly person, therefore, in a state of panic and reduced to a state of psychological constraint, is faced with the inevitability of the fact and the only way out is to give up all the gold and cash in his possession, just to avoid prison for your son. While the victim is kept constantly on the phone, so that he cannot ask anyone for help, the person responsible for collecting the gleaned assets appears and often also introduces himself as a policeman, lawyer or in any case a collaborator of the person who took contacts with the unfortunate.
Also in this case the victims described the same situation and filed a complaint with the Nuoro Carabinieri.
Meanwhile, at the Port of Cagliari the Flying Squad policemen started looking for the second subject who had boarded the ship, already leaving for Naples and had also already taken the car on board. With the collaboration of the ship’s Commander and the on-board staff, as well as the policemen of the Maritime Border Police Office, the young man was tracked down, blocked and disembarked.
The two were accompanied to the police station for the continuation of the investigations conducted also through the identification of the subjects and part of the stolen goods, the examination of witnesses and the viewing of the images extrapolated from the video surveillance systems present at the scene of the events.
Having gathered elements for the existence of serious indications of guilt in relation to the commission of the crime of extortion, the two young people were subjected to arrest as suspects of the crime, on the initiative, and, on the orders of the Public Prosecutor, respectively at the Ordinary Court and the Juvenile Court, one was transferred to the Uta Prison and the minor to the First Reception Center for minors in Quartucciu.
