In recent days, thanks to the report of a private citizen, staff of the La Spezia mobile team was aware that a subject had offered for sale on the well-known social network Facebook, numerous surgical masks at the huge price of € 20 each together with other medical material, always sold at a disproportionate cost compared to its real market value, taking advantage of the fact that they have now become unavailable in commercial establishments and pharmacies due to the ongoing health emergency linked to Coronavirus. An investigation was immediately activated which, in the same afternoon, led to the interception of the individual just as he was trying to finalize a sale with a potential buyer, who had joined the announcement placed online. The subject, who turned out to be a 19-year-old young man already known to law enforcement and who was using a fake Facebook profile, was found in possession of twenty surgical masks, various packs of latex gloves and wipes for hospital disinfection. Further investigations were therefore prepared which made it possible to trace the person who had procured this material to the nineteen year old; a 52-year-old man, already burdened by police records, operating inside the local hospital where, presumably, this material had been stolen. Requested and obtained from the local AG a search decree at the latter's home, further medical material and other surgical masks were found and seized. Targeted investigations are underway to finalize and define the certain origin of the seized material and at the moment the two detainees have been reported in a state of freedom for the crime of receiving stolen goods.
The operation conducted by the Mobile Squad takes on particular importance in light of the current epidemiological emergency connected to Coronavirus, since it has interrupted a particularly abject criminal action, as it not only guaranteed the authors to make money on people's needs, but also because the material put on sale illegally had been stolen in the hospital, therefore with serious damage to the health system, at a time when such material is absolutely indispensable.