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Milan, November 4, 2020 – There is more than a scent of old, more than a letter that refers to the bad of yesteryear, in the sensational assault on the Credit Agricole branch in via Stoppani in Milan. Two thieves who appear at the entrance, during opening hours, and display their weapons. Five accomplices emerged from a hole in the floor, connected to a tunnel that runs from the basement. A short fight with the manager. The same excavation used for removal, with some safes because the escape of one of the employees prevented the attack on the safe, perhaps the main target. And then to the sewers. For the rest, speed, precision, preparation, logistics. In the Milanese criminal history ‘gang of the hole’ is not a simple phrase and those …
Milan, November 4, 2020 – There is more than an ancient aroma, more than a letter that refers to the bad of yesteryear, in the sensational assault on the branch of the Agricultural Credit in via Stoppani in Milan. Two thieves who appear at the entrance, during opening hours, and display their weapons. Five accomplices emerged from a hole in the ground, connected to a tunnel that runs from the basement. A short fight with the manager. The same excavation used for removal, with some safes because the escape of one of the employees prevented the attack on the safe, perhaps the main target. And then to the sewers. For the rest, speed, precision, preparation, logistics.
In Milanese criminal history ‘band of holes’ It is not a simple phrase and those who translated it into action had nothing to do with the ramshackle battery of the usual strangers who, having made the fateful hole, are in the kitchen to consume (and with pleasure) a plate of pasta and chickpeas . .
The serious professionals are the ones who act on Christmas Eve 2001. They work quietly on December 25 and perhaps also in Santo Stefano to rob the vault of the then Banca Cariplo in via Verdi, a stone’s throw from La Scala. To steal a treasure chest of cash and safe deposit boxes, they flexibly cut through an iron door that opened to an internal courtyard at the back of the bank, then entered a basement hallway near the vault.
Belongs to an even closer past the spectacular blow to the Banca Popolare di Novara from piazza Otto Novembre. It is August 12, 2016, in a half-empty and almost silent city. The five robbers, apparently all Italian, one with a Neapolitan accent, emerge in the basement of the bank just before the inauguration. Only one is armed and forces an employee to open the armored door to the vault. After roughly ninety of the 300 safes have been raided, they flee the same underground tunnel. History repeats itself. Techniques are passed on.
New generations it happened to the old ones, those generated by the experience of war, who find themselves masters of a Milan without masters. After World War II, the first bandit, Ezio Barbieri, made his debut with his forays aboard a Lancia Aprilia. In 1957, a first decisive moment with the robbery in Piazza Wagner: for the first time bandits use a motor vehicle to attack a security carrier. It is just a prologue. There are seven of them. The organization is meticulous. Months of inspections. Wearing blue overalls and ski masks, on the misty morning of February 27, 1958, they assaulted the Banca Popolare security van between via Osoppo and via Caccialepre. Sidereal booty: 614 million.
It is the apogee, the highest point and at the same time the swan song of a criminal underworld at sunset. In the next decade, gangs from outside press and settle, increasingly organized and unscrupulous, attracted by the new riches of the metropolis. There’s still room for one like Luciano Lutring, which the inventiveness of a chronicler baptizes ‘the soloist of the machine gun’ because of a violin case abandoned to escape. A soloist, actually.
The time has changed. Machine guns gurgle. A large number has settled in Milan ‘Clan of the Marseillais’, in search of a safe haven and appetizing prey. At 4.30 pm on April 15, 1964, a command that appears to be militarily trained isolates the central via Montenapoleone and breaks into the Colombo goldsmith shop. Machine gun bursts are real. They terrorize people and wake Milan from its sweet slumber. Three years later, the machine guns crackle and kill. Cavallero’s gang slips from Turin to Milan. It is September 25, 67. The target is the Banco di Napoli de Largo Zandonai. Something is wrong. When the carabinieri and the police intercept them, the bandits shoot into the crowd. The dead are four, the wounded about twenty.
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