For days the citizens of Romito Magra had been reporting to the authorities a strong smell of gas coming from a particular point near the main road. This morning the Carabinieri of the Arcola station and the Italgas technicians, after having identified the area of the supposed leak, intervened at a house. And what they discovered was beyond imagination.
What should theoretically have been a simple fault was actually an artisanal tampering that allowed a resident of Arcola to use gas without paying the bills. The police ascertained that the man, a 45-year-old, had had the meter sealed for over four years and that, according to the investigators, he had therefore made do with his own hands in order to have a supply. The diversion, in particular, was achieved using hydraulic pipes.
It was necessary to call the fire brigade as the bypass system, clumsily constructed, was generating a large gas leak right next to the surface of the Romito Magra provincial road in the direction of Lerici. A thoroughfare frequented by several hundred vehicles every day.
The plant has been made safe while the man will have to answer to the Prosecutor’s Office of La Spezia for the crime of theft of gas energy and attack on the safety of gas energy plants.
