Sassari They had also planned to kill. To leave behind, during their escape with the bags full of money, the lifeless bodies of the men of the police force who on Friday evening – with courage – tried to block the assault on the headquarters of Mondialpol in Caniga, a suburb of Sassari a few hundred meters from the shopping centers. A diabolical plan, carried out by a commando willing to do anything, composed of about twenty bandits armed with Kalashnikovs, dressed in black and wearing bulletproof vests, who would have succeeded – according to an initial estimate not yet confirmed – in making away with about twenty million euros. Only by a miracle, both the carabinieri car and the one of the traffic police, reached by the volley of bullets during the dramatic phases of the firefight, protected the men of the police force and no one was injured. Also saved was the Mondialpol agent who shortly after 8 pm on Friday was on guard inside the surveillance post. The man is alive thanks to the bulletproof glass that protected him from the barrage of Kalashnikov shots fired at him. And one of the shots may have also hit the tire of one of the local police cars, which arrived in Caniga during the robbery. A fiery inferno during which – shooting even at chest height – the criminals allegedly fired at least 150 shots. Many bullet casings – both from pistols and Kalashnikovs – that yesterday morning the experts of the Scientific Police found and collected around the headquarters of Mondialpol.
The investigations entrusted to the flying squad investigators, led by the manager Michele Meccastarted from there – from the crime scene – to reconstruct the gang’s movements before and after the robbery. Since Friday night, the investigators, coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Elisa Succoare examining the images from the security cameras in the area and the internal and external ones of the security institute in search of elements useful for tracking down the criminals. The idea is that the police had a feeling that something was about to happen in the city. In fact, the anti-robbery plan had been activated on Friday morning, but the checks had not reported anything suspicious. And it is not excluded that the commando waited for the very day of the reopening to traffic – after years – of the “Chighizzu” tunnels that lead out of the city, so as not to get stuck during the escape towards the south of the island.
The attack began a few moments after 8pm, when the sun had not yet set. Target the Mondialpol vault. The chest, however, remained intact and the pension money – transferred yesterday morning to the post offices in central-northern Sardinia – remained safe behind the thick armored door. However, the bandits managed to take away about ten bags of money collected during the day by the security guards and which had to be counted before ending up in the vault. During the escape, some wads of money ended up on the ground, but the bulk ended up inside the sturdy white bags that the gang had brought to take the money away.
Just a couple of weeks ago the Mondialpol men carried out an attack exercise on the headquarters. But on Friday night it was all terribly real. «We suffered a violent attack, meticulously planned and well organized by a paramilitary commando, he explains Rita Achenzahead of Mondialpol – an action that has no precedent in Italy. Thanks to our security systems, also following the 2016 robbery, the stolen values are limited. Despite the firepower, all the personnel remained unharmed – he adds – and operated with professionalism and coolness: for this, they and the police forces deserve sincere gratitude”. The manhunt, coordinated from Rome by the Central Operations Service of the police and by Sisco from Cagliari, continues throughout Sardinia.
