An eighteen year old from the province of Caserta he was arrested by the Carabinieri of Corigliano Rossano on charges of having defrauded and assaulted two elderly women.
Pretending to be a police marshal, the young man and his accomplices extorted money and valuables from the victims, telling false stories of accidents and arrests.
In one case, the attacker went so far as to beat the old woman to secure the loot. Investigations are still ongoing to identify the other members of the gang.
The arrest was made in execution of a precautionary measure issued by the investigating judge of Castrovillari at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the city of Pollino, which coordinated the investigation.
The false non-commissioned officer is said to have committed two incidents within a few days of each other. The first occurred on May 21, when an elderly lady from Corigliano Rossano was contacted on her cell phone by a person who, after identifying himself as a Carabinieri marshal, made her believe that her son had caused a serious car accident in which a woman had died.
For this reason the woman's son had been arrested and in order to free him it was necessary to pay at least 12 thousand euros. At the same time a second accomplice had contacted the woman on the landline, identifying himself as the son's lawyer and obviously providing her with the same version.
Finally, a third accomplice showed up at the woman's house, where he had her hand over money and valuables. The second episode, a few days later, when the same organization staged a similar plot against another elderly woman from Cassano all'Ionio, but on this occasion the criminals went even further.
In fact, the eighteen-year-old who was later arrested, the same one who had taken the valuables from the elderly woman from Corigliano Rossano, to secure the proceeds of the scam, did not hesitate to physically attack the woman.
Once the reports were filed, the joint activity of the military of the Corigliano Rossano Territorial Department and the Cassano all'Ionio Company allowed the identification of the first of the subjects of this gang, the eighteen year old, while investigations are still underway to trace the other members of the organization.
Article published on 17 October 2024 - 12:45
