Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
CATANIA – A genuine illegal storage “warehouse” has been identified and seized by the National Police (Polizia di Stato) in the Villaggio Sant’Agata area of Catania. The operation, carried out by officers from the Librino police station as part of an extraordinary plan to tackle thefts from parked cars, led to the recovery of goods and vehicles with a total commercial value estimated at more than €30,000.
The intervention at Villaggio Sant’Agata and the search
Investigators’ attention focused on a private garage secured with a sturdy padlock. To access the premises, the operational team of the Fire Brigade was called in to force entry, allowing the search to begin.
Inside the warehouse, officers found a large quantity of stolen goods:
- Vehicles: scooters of various engine sizes and professional racing and mountain bikes worth several thousand euros.
- Equipment and technology: high-performance trekking and cycling gear, laptops and professional audio headphones.
Immediate cross-checks with police databases allowed officers to quickly identify the rightful owner of one of the scooters, for which return procedures have been initiated.
Stolen property returned at the last moment to a tourist about to leave
Almost all the remaining material in the garage was found to have come from the theft of a van parked in Catania’s historic centre. The vehicle belonged to a foreign tourist who had filed a criminal complaint just a few hours earlier.
Officers from the Librino police station managed to track him down at the last moment, intercepting him shortly before he left the city and Sicily to return to his home country. After verifying that all his work tools and personal belongings were fully accounted for and intact, the man expressed his deep gratitude to the police for the speed of their intervention.
The National Police are continuing investigations to trace the origin of the other seized scooters and to identify the tenant or the actual user of the garage.
