Nicknamed the “acrobat thieves”, a gang of 4 have been arrested in Milan after allegedly monitoring the actions of town’s celebrities and influencers on Instagram earlier than scaling their condo buildings and robbing their properties.
The Inter Milan footballer Achraf Hakimi, the TV presenter Diletta Leotta and the influencer Eleonora Incardona have been among the many victims.
The gang are mentioned to have used Instagram to spy on their targets meticulously, reconstructing their actions, getting a glimpse inside their properties and figuring out the kind of home windows they’d.
The lads, aged between 17 and 44, would gown elegantly to mix into the plush neighbourhoods of their targets. CCTV footage of 1 theft reveals one gang member protecting watch as one other climbs a constructing and enters the window of a first-floor condo.
“He placed on latex gloves and rapidly climbed up a pole and in direction of a window on the primary ground, pressured it open and entered the house,” the Milan prosecutor Francesca Crupi mentioned.
The thief then opened the entrance door of the house to the opposite two accomplices, and collectively they stuffed their loot right into a suitcase owned by the sufferer earlier than fleeing.
Police mentioned the sequence of thefts started in June final yr, when €150,000 (£130,000) value of products together with jewelry, designer purses and Rolex watches, was stolen from a house of Leotta.
The gang can be suspected of being behind the theft of a number of watches belonging to Hakimi, who transferred to Inter Milan from Borussia Dortmund in September and had been dwelling in momentary lodging on the time of the theft in November.
The gang additionally allegedly stole 9 designer purses and objects of clothes from the house of Incardona, who has virtually 500,000 followers on Instagram, in December. Police have managed to retrieve many of the loot.
In one other audacious theft in Milan in November, a gang of armed thieves broke right into a financial institution by crawling by means of the sewage community earlier than stealing a number of safe-deposit containers and escaping the identical means.
The thieves scuffled with the financial institution’s supervisor and held him and one other employees member hostage through the theft.
