Ancona: First they lured clients with sexual ads then blackmailed them in exchange for money. Couple in their twenties arrested

An couple, he is 29 and she is 27, They were arrested by the Carabinieri of Ancona in execution of an enforcement order precautionary measure in prison issued by the GIP of the Court of Macerata because they were deemed jointly responsible for at least 5 extortions (in addition to an attempted one), as well as a episode of aggravated private violence, for having threatened and forced the victims to pay sums of money in their favor.

The scrupulous investigations conducted by the Ancona Carabinieri Station Main, began in the month of September of last year when the first victim, a 43 year old from Osimo, had turned to the military after having suffered aextortion.

It all started when the complainant had contacted by telephone a girl who had posted online, on a dating site, an ad in which he proposed paid sexual services.

Subsequently, the partner of the woman, even though the meeting with the victim never materialized, he had threatened to make public her interest in paid sex, requesting the sum of 100 euros in exchange for his silence.

The investigations, which were developed through the analysis of telephone and computer records, instant messaging applications and in-depth investigations on classified ad websites, allowed us to collect numerous clues against those arrested and to identify at least 31 more sexual services ads posted online from the same.

The script played out by the extortionists was always the same. The couple came into play after the woman had made the first contact with the victim.

Then, regardless of whether sexual intercourse actually took place – which never occurred in the contested episodes – the defrauded person was threatened by the man to release video material relating to the consummation of sexual relations with other women of whom he claimed to be the protector and forced to deliver the money to them personally, meeting them for the payment in the Municipality of Civitanova Marche (MC).

The Carabinieri of the Ancona Main Station, during the investigations, identified at least 4 more extortion episodes committed with the same modus operandi for which the victims, exasperated by the insistent and continuous requests for money, have filed a complaint in the last 3 months at the Carabinieri Stations of Sarnano (MC), Monte San Giusto (MC), Montecosaro (MC) and Sant'Elpidio a Mare (FM).

The activity was concluded not only with the arrest of those responsible in execution of a precautionary custody order issued by the GIP of the court of Macerata, but also with the execution of a decree of preventive seizure of all accounts activated on the various websites identified and theblacking out misleading sex ads, in order to prevent other people from falling into the same trap.