TERLANO. «On Tuesday evening, my girlfriend locked herself in the bathroom with her 3-month-old baby while thieves were stealing from the house. They ran away with 250 euros quickly taken from their purse only when he shouted to them that a police gazelle was coming”: the speaker is a 30-year-old from Terlano, who lives in via Novale, in a single-family house. It is just one of the homes where this specialized gang tried to attack. “I understand, in the same street – comments the young man deeply affected by the story – another 3/4 attempted robberies”.
Thieves caught on camera
The gang of criminals was filmed entering the house in via Novale. «From the cameras in the garden you can see that they are two young people with athletic physiques. The one who enters has a hat, a distorted face, is wearing a sports jacket and black gloves.” In reality the thieves entered through a French window in the garden.
«My partner was in the living room, on the ground floor, when she heard the little one moving upstairs. Then she went upstairs and at that moment she heard noises coming from the ground floor. Instinctively she took the child and locked herself in the bathroom.” The gang, after rummaging around a bit, went up to the first floor and also tried to enter the bathroom. «But my girlfriend had the quick wit and strength to shout to them that she had called the police, who were in fact arriving quickly from Terlano station».
Within a minute or two at most the thieves made a hasty escape, losing their traces in the countryside, from where they had probably come. «I was in Bolzano for work and my partner called me. I arrived shortly after but everything had already ended well.”
The chosen period
Every year in Bassa Atesina, Oltradige and in the Adige Valley the number of thefts and attempted home burglaries increases significantly during the apple harvest and the grape harvest. According to the police, it cannot be ruled out that it could be a similar case. But it could also easily be a local gang. “Now it gets dark much earlier and these thieving raids are multiplying,” concludes the 30-year-old. Among other things, a family member of the victim, shortly before the theft in Via Novale, had collected a package and left the house. The gang probably waited for him to leave and forced the French window on the ground floor.