Rome: Pickpockets targeted elderly people from Gemelli in North Rome.

It was the Gemini, the large university hospital, the favourite haunt of the two pickpockets stopped by the State Police after a long investigation coordinated by the magistrates of the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office – Department of Widespread and Serious CrimeRight on the hospital's avenues, frequented every day by people from all over Italy, the two operated undisturbed, targeting the elderly.

The investigation, which resulted in the application of the precautionary measure, started from an initial accusation of a crime committed in 2023. According to what was reconstructed by the agents of the Monte Mario Police Station, analyzing the complaints filed in the last two years, today's suspects, a thirty-seven-year-old and a fifty-three-year-old Romanian, they operated following a simple and linear pattern: they approached the victims along the pedestrian paths leading to the hospital, distracted them with a light push and stole their wallets.

In most cases, to prevent the victims from being able to block the cards, they immediately performed a substantial withdrawal to the nearest ATM, then attempted further purchases as they made their way home.

During the investigations, coordinated by the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office team, the agents reconstructed 20 episodes, almost all of which occurred in hospital settings. Only one was reportedly committed in a train station. Investigations revealed that the two regularly traveled from Ladispoli on board rental cars, also making use of occasional accomplices.

The reconstruction of the individual episodes was possible thanks to meticulous work based on the analysis of hundreds of hours of recordings security cameras, systematically cross-referenced with data from law enforcement databases. The investigators' experience in recognizing the modus operandi of the two suspects.

At the end of the investigations, the Prosecutor's Office asked and obtained from Judge for Preliminary Investigations a precautionary measure against the two main accomplices, both already known for specific precedents. They are now seriously suspected of the crimes of aggravated theft, receiving stolen goods and fraudulent use of credit cards.

The precautionary measure was carried out by the officers of the Monte Mario Police Station who reached the two in their respective homes in Ladispoli, where they will remain under house arrest available to the judicial authority.