Diamonds, weapons and a mammoth tooth: a pensioner hid 6 million euros of stolen goods at home

Diamonds and other precious stones, gold coins, fine watches, six crates full of fossils including a mammoth tooth: this is the treasure found in the possession of an unsuspecting seventy-year-old pensioner from Bologna, which turned out to be the proceeds of thefts committed in over a period of at least 20 years and whose value should be around six million euros overall. The police found the loot in three apartments between Bologna and the Ravenna area and some safety deposit boxes.

The man, with a clean record and so far never touched by police investigations, is now being investigated on the loose for receiving stolen goods. According to investigators, a large part of the goods found (about 100,000 items) can be traced back to crimes committed mostly in central-northern Italy in the last 20 years. It ranges from the proceeds of apartment thefts, thefts on trains, scams, muggings and pickpocketing.

To transport all the goods, the agents had to call a moving company. In fact, these are objects of all kinds: not only jewels and valuables, but also photos and video cameras, electronic devices, collections of butterflies and beetles, military uniforms from the Second World War, antique muzzle-loading pistols and even 330,000 euros in cash which the man kept hidden in a fake book.

So far it has been possible to return just a tenth of the stolen property to the owners, for a value of around 600 thousand euros, the proceeds of thefts committed in the Bologna area until autumn 2022.

In order to try to trace the owners of the other seized objects, it was also decided to prepare an ad hoc page on the Bologna Police Headquarters website, visible at the link questure.poliziadistato.it/it/Bologna/articolo/301364083cd999228775730150.