The Carabinieri of the Scalea Company have implemented a precautionary custody order in prison, issued by the investigating judge of the Court of Paola, at the request of the local Public Prosecutor’s Office, against three citizens of Romanian nationality, seriously suspected, in various capacities and in complicity, of the crimes of robbery, sexual violence, serious personal injury and kidnapping. The restrictive measure arises from the outcome of investigations launched following the very serious criminal event that occurred on the night of 21 May 2025 in the “Piano Grande” area of Scalea, in the home of an elderly couple, she was 72 years old and he was 84 years old. The intense and uninterrupted investigations directed by the magistrates of the Paola Prosecutor’s Office have made it possible to reconstruct the facts and identify the alleged perpetrators.
According to the investigative analysis, that night, the three entered the victims’ home through a rear entrance, after breaking the glass of the window and forcing it to close. Once inside, armed with a knife and a gun, they threatened and brutally beat the elderly couple, forcing them to hand over money and gold jewellery. During the action, the man would have been immobilized, while the elderly woman would have suffered sexual violence. Both victims suffered personal injuries as a result of the attacks.
The first investigations conducted immediately after the events allowed the investigators to recover a substantial sum of money, equal to approximately 45,000 euros in cash, which the victim kept in his bedroom and which the criminals had failed to remove during the criminal action. The direct testimonies of the victims, the analysis of the images of the video surveillance systems and, above all, the telephone and environmental interceptions, together with the advanced analysis of a large amount of telephone records, proved to be decisive for the investigative activity, which allowed the Carabinieri to gather serious indications of guilt against the three suspects.
During the investigations, conducted quickly and scrupulously, the soldiers also had to face objective difficulties due to the use, in conversations between the suspects, of cryptic language and Romanés dialect, which were overcome thanks to the competence and tenacity of the investigators. Further evidentiary elements emerged from the technical investigations carried out by the Scientific Investigations Department of the Carabinieri of Messina, which highlighted compatibility between the genetic profiles of the suspects and the biological traces found at the crime scene and on the victim’s clothing. In particular, these latest investigations were conducted with innovative techniques to ascertain the biogeographic ancestry of those responsible.
The operations to capture the criminals, who initially remained untraceable, were particularly complex. After exhausting and uninterrupted searches, the use of advanced monitoring systems, including a drone, proved decisive, thanks to which it was possible to identify the fugitives and analyze their possible escape routes during capture.
During the final phase of the intervention, one of the fugitives attempted to escape across the rooftops but after a short chase, he was reached and arrested by the operating military.
The complex circumstantial framework outlined by the investigators has therefore made it possible to precisely reconstruct the modus operandi of the criminal group, confirming the seriousness of the facts and their traceability to the three arrested.