Milano, from Palermo to rob banks: captured by the police

The State Police, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milano, carried out a precautionary custody order in prison in Palermo against five "travelers" from Palermo responsible for 3 completed robberies and an attempted robbery against "UBI Banca" banking institutions committed in Milano between the months of May and August 2019 and which brought in a total of 297.931 euros.

The State Police has carried out a precautionary custody order in prison against five robbers, all of Palermo origin, responsible for 3 completed robberies and an attempted robbery committed in Milano to “UBI Banca” banking institutions between the months of May and August 2019 and which yielded a total of 297.931 euros.

The robbers, all residents of Palermo, were reached by the order issued on 22 May 2020 by the GIP Dr. Sofia Luigia Fioretta, at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milano, Deputy Prosecutor Dr. Laura Pedio and Deputy Prosecutor Dr. Isabella Samek Lodovici.

The investigations, conducted by the Flying Squad of the Police Headquarters of Milano, with the collaboration of the Palermo office, have made it possible to reconstruct the existence and operations of a criminal group dedicated to the serial commission of bank robberies, using a modus operandi tested and systematic, by the so-called "travelers" who, with variable geometry, were involved in the individual episodes.

The numerous telephone and environmental interceptions in the cars available to the suspects, the observation and shadowing services, the analysis of telephone records and the findings, culminating in the identification of the "hideout" in an apartment in Rozzano (MI), where the various members of the gang who remained at Milano the useful time for the final planning and implementation of each individual robbery, have made it possible, as a whole, to reconstruct the role played by each of them during each robbery.

Each robbery perpetrated was committed using box cutters to threaten employees and customers who were blocked waiting for the timed opening of the "vaults", remaining inside the banking institutions for up to 50 minutes; during the robbery in via Washington on 7 August 2019, the robbers used electrician's cable ties to lock people inside the bank and, on several occasions, they used "Attack" putty to cover the tips of their fingers and not leave their fingerprints.

GA, born in Palermo in '76, “the planner, executor and stake”, domiciled in Rozzano (MI), exploited his knowledge of the area to study the various banking institutions and designated the objectives "to be hit"; he had rented an apartment in which he lived and which he used as a "den" to host in a "confidential" manner every "travelling" robber who was hired to carry out individual robberies. During the execution of the "hits" he used a car to take the robbers to their targets, acting as a "post". During the investigation it emerged that GA would have wanted to take part in a robbery "actively" by entering the bank himself, a circumstance that actually occurred when, on 8 October 2019, he was arrested in flagrante delicto during an attempted robbery at the Ubi Banca branch in Busto Arsizio (VA).

ML, born in Palermo in '75, “the expert robber”, had made his experience as a bank robber available to the criminal group; using false identity documents to make his movements on the TN invisible, he reached the Milanese capital when the targets to hit had been designated. Before each robbery, he himself carried out the final inspections in which to study the robbery in every detail.

GI born in Palermo in '77, “the trusted accomplice”, every time a bank was designated to rob he was hired by ML as a reliable companion: in the two robberies perpetrated in Milano in via Friuli and via Washington in July 2019, in fact, they acted together.

SM, born in '69 and V.LC. born in 75, both from Palermo, they were hired directly by GA to carry out a "photocopy" robbery at the UBI Banca in via Washington on 7 August 2019 using electrician's cable ties to block the employees; they too had attempted a robbery at the Ubi Banca in via Friuli the previous day.