The Novara State Police, in the early hours of today's morning and the outcome of an articulated investigative activity, carried out nine precautionary measures and thirteen personal and local search decrees, as well as carried out numerous kidnappings in Novara and in the province.

The complex operation, called "Dear Nonna" - "Droga Babciu" in Polish - conducted by the Novara Mobile Squad and coordinated by the Novara Public Prosecutor's Office, made it possible to identify a transnational criminal association dedicated to the commission aggravated fraud against the elderly.

The long and difficult investigations allowed the Flying Squad to dismantle the criminal association that, for some time, had been perpetrating numerous scams against people aged between 60 and 95, predestined victims of the criminal group. The investigation proved to be particularly complex as the perpetrators of these vile crimes operated with a logistic base in Poland and an "operations center" located in this capital.

In practice, the modus operandi implemented by the criminal association was of a serial type, and acted on the vulnerability and good faith of the victims: the offended parties were contacted by telephone by subjects who pretended to be their next relatives, fake children or grandchildren who, with the excuse of having caused a serious road accident or of being in imminent danger of life after contracting the "COVID-19" virus, they convinced the unfortunate person on duty to help them and, therefore, to collect all the money and precious objects present at home: only in this way, in fact, would they have avoided their loved one from being arrested by phantom Police Forces or could they have paid for his treatment and saved his life.

Following the work of convincing by the "telephone operator" to the detriment of the unsuspecting victim, an accomplice of the criminal group, man or woman, was sent to the home of the latter, posing as the "secretary of a notary" or for the "medical personnel", passed by the unfortunate person on duty to collect the rich loot consisting of money or objects in gold.

Often not even the suspicions of some victim prevented the crime from being committed: when the offended party doubted what was communicated to him and tried to contact a relative or the police to understand if the facts learned were real, he obtained a always answered by a member of the criminal group. The scammers, in fact, particularly shrewd, contacted the victims on the landline phone of the house and did not interrupt their first communication, keeping the line busy even for hours. In this way, if the unsuspecting victims had tried, using the same fixed user instead of a mobile phone, to contact the police or in any case to dial other numbers to ask for help, "on the other side of the line" there were always members of the criminal group who reassured them, convincing them to hand over everything in their possession in order to avoid worse consequences for their families. 

The investigative activity began in March 2020 when a woman over eighty, already victim of a similar crime in the past, received a phone call from her fake "nephew" who, after causing a road accident with injuries, informed her that she was by the notary because he had to pay compensation immediately, otherwise he would have been arrested. The woman, mindful of what had already happened previously, had pretended to believe what was happening to her and at the same time had called 112. The immediate intervention of the investigators had made it possible to proceed with the arrest in flagrante delicto of the young man who showed up to collect the booty and to start the investigation.

The latter, conducted through stalking, stalking and complex interception activities, made difficult by the fact that the "telephone operators" operated from abroad, made it possible to reconstruct the structure of the criminal group and identify the responsibility of the same in relation to about fifty episodes occurred, from January to August 2020, in the provinces of Novara, Vercelli, Como and in the Swiss territory.

The close collaboration between the staff of the Crimes Against the Assets Section of the Novara Mobile Squad and the Judicial Police of the Canton of Ticino has also made it possible to add precious elements to the investigative activity already in progress, allowing the identification of those responsible for acts committed to the abroad, thus bringing out the consummation of transnational criminal conduct.

The representatives of the organization were identified in Roma citizens of Polish ethnicity, who have been sitting in this capital for decades, who acted on the basis of precise directives that came from the foreign logistic base and made use of the collaboration, as "persons in charge of withdrawal", of young people boys residing in the capital or women belonging to their family clan.

The complex and circumstantiated accusatory framework was fully shared by the GIP of the Court of Novara who, at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office, issued four orders of custody in prison against LD, 46, and BB, 32, (spouses), CN, 21 years old, and LM, 36 years old, three precautionary home custody against KY, 21 years old, KH, 27 years old, and E, A ,, 23 years old, as well as two precautionary measures of the obligation of presentation to the pg against PG, 23, and EO, 22. During the investigation, five arrests had been made in the act of crime.

At the same time as the execution of the measures, numerous personal and home searches were carried out, which allowed the discovery and seizure of material considered very useful for the continuation of the investigations.

It has been estimated that the proceeds from the scams carried out amount to about 400.000 euros, including money and jewels; objects of value were usually sent to Poland with the aim of recycling them, monetizing their value, and thus making them lose track.

In the course of the investigation, and in particular during the wiretaps, the wickedness, ruthlessness and incredible cynical determination of the telephone operators who made dozens and dozens of repeat calls to the detriment of the victims emerged, until they found the person who slavishly performed what they requested. The criminals proved totally insensitive to the fact that with their words they created in the elderly victims a deep state of terror caused by the threats of repercussions that put the safety of their loved ones at risk. Indeed, thanks to this, with impressive coldness, they leveraged the victims inducing them to deprive themselves of their possessions which, in addition to a certain economic value, represented a strong emotional value as memories of beautiful moments or of people no longer alive.

The advent of the serious pandemic in progress not only did not stop the criminal activities of the criminal association, but also provided it with a new pretext to increase the proceeds of the scams as, in addition to facilitating its conduct, it made use of state of isolation, and the consequent vulnerability, in which many elderly people have found themselves.

Over 60 agents were employed to carry out the precautionary measures, searches and seizures, with the participation of the personnel of the Mobile Teams of Turin, Alessandria, Asti, Aosta, Biella, Verbania and Vercelli, as well as crews of the Crime Prevention Department. of Turin, who are thanked for their availability.

The State Police invites the victims of these crimes to always request the intervention of the Police Forces: the numerous judicial police activities carried out over the years, aimed at the repression of these vile crimes, have led to the emergence of an overwhelming number of similar situations which were not even reported. In fact, often these types of scams are kept hidden by the offended parties who, in addition to having considerable economic damage, feel victims of guilt and show impotence and shame for the ways in which they have been deceived.

Sometimes the circumstances are kept hidden even from close family members, precisely out of a sense of shame and modesty, but it is good to reiterate instead that only the denunciation and the story of the facts, however painful, represent the only possibility to frame the guilty, thus avoiding that they can harm other people.

Novara. Vanquished gang that perpetrated serial scams to the detriment of elderly people

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