Mascali: in a car with 700 kg of stolen avocados, 4 reported by the Carabinieri.

As part of the services arranged by the Provincial Command to combat predatory crimes in rural areas, the Carabinieri of the Fiumefreddo di Sicilia Station reported three men from Paternò, aged 43, 37 and 31 respectively, and a 29-year-old man from Catania for receiving stolen goods.
It was not yet dawn when the Station patrol was travelling along the peripheral via Badalà, which, running alongside the city countryside, reaches the sea.

At a certain point, the attention of the military was drawn to a Fiat Punto with foreign license plates that was traveling in the opposite direction and which, at the sight of the Carabinieri, suddenly accelerated.

Suspicious, the crew made a quick U-turn, tracking down the small car and, having reached the intersection with Via Filippo Turati, found the car abandoned, with the doors still open.
The soldiers, therefore, immediately asked for reinforcements from the Operations Center and, at the same time, checked what was in the passenger compartment, discovering that it contained 300 kg of avocado.

Once the stolen goods had been found, it was then necessary to search for the fugitives, and a patrol car from the Giarre Radiomobile was sent to the scene for this very purpose, proving to be decisive because, a few hundred metres from the place where the Punto had been abandoned, it came across another small car and decided to check it, identifying the 43-year-old and the 31-year-old on board who were carrying another 400 kg of avocados.

Having realized that the two were part of the same "team", or rather that they were accomplices of the men who had escaped shortly before, the detectives of the Carabinieri took them to the barracks, where, through checks in the database, they discovered the names and surnames of their "drinking companions", ascertaining that they too, a few weeks earlier, had been checked in that car with foreign license plates.

In the meantime, the military patrol of Fiumefreddo, has examined in depth the investigations also viewing the footage of the video surveillance systems of the area, discovering the direction taken by the fugitives and identifying their hiding place: the parking lot of a supermarket not far away.
The officers then quickly reached the supermarket forecourt and identified the other two accomplices. Seeing the Arma patrol, they tried in vain to hide among the cars, but were immediately recognized as the driver and passenger of the abandoned Punto, then blocked and taken to the barracks.
There was no escape for the four individuals who were, of course, all reported to the Judicial Authorities for receiving stolen goods.

The 700 kg of precious fruits, for a total value of over €8.000, calculated considering the market price of €3 per piece, were initially seized and, subsequently, on the instructions of the Judicial Authority, donated to charity to reception centers in the area, since no one showed up to claim possession of them or report the theft.