Nicknamed the ‘acrobatic thieves’, a gang of four was arrested in Milan after allegedly following the movements of the city’s celebrities and influencers on Instagram before scaling down their apartment buildings and robbing their homes.
Inter Milan footballer Achraf Hakimi, TV presenter Diletta Leotta and influencer Eleonora Incardona were among the victims.
The gang is said to have used Instagram to carefully spy on their targets, reconstruct their movements, get a glimpse into their homes and determine the type of windows. Their nickname refers to their skill and dexterity in climbing the sides of buildings.
The men, aged between 17 and 44, would dress elegantly to mingle in the lush neighborhoods of their targets. On the CCTV footage of one theft, one gang member can be seen watching while another climbs into a building and enters the window of an apartment on the first floor.
“He put on latex gloves and quickly climbed up a pole and to a window on the first floor, forced it open and entered the house,” prosecutor Francesca Crupi said in Milan.
The thief then opened the front door of the house for the other two accomplices, and together they stuffed their loot into a suitcase owned by the victim before fleeing.
Police said the series of thefts began in June last year, when € 150,000 (£ 130,000) worth of goods, including jewelery, designer bags and Rolex watches, were stolen from a Leotta home.
The gang is also suspected of being behind the robbery of several watches by Hakimi, who was transferred from Borussia Dortmund to Inter Milan in September and lived in a temporary accommodation at the time of the theft in November.
The gang also allegedly stole nine designer bags and garments from the house of Incardona in December, which has nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram. Police managed to retrieve most of the loot.
In another brutal robbery in November in Milan, a gang of armed thieves broke into a bank by crawling through the sewer network before stealing several safes and escaping in the same way.
The thieves struggled with the bank’s manager and held him and another staff member hostage during the robbery.