The evening started quite normally for the two Swiss tourists who wanted to enjoy the summer in Naples in southern Italy. The two men were sitting on the terrace of a restaurant in Piazza Trieste e Trento, one of the main squares in Naples, having a drink when a man spoke to them, then pointed a gun at them, snatched a watch from them and quickly walked away.
Surveillance footage shows the two stunned men explaining to the waiter what just happened to them, then sitting down to eat their dinner. Only the Swiss are not yet at the end of their emotions of the evening. Just seven minutes after the theft, an accomplice of the robber approaches their table, but this time with his hands raised to show he is unarmed.
Rapina and a tourist svizzero and a café in Piazza Trieste and Trento: Pistola alla testa per portargli via l’orologio e poi gielo riconsegnano perché vale poco. La denuncia dei titolari del locale: “Tutto questo in centro città. Serve un presidio costante delle forze dell’ordine” pic.twitter.com/aKRU1yKg39
— Francesco Borrelli (@NotizieFrance) July 19, 2022
Antonio Visconti, the owner of the bar where the two men were sitting, told CNN that the criminal actually came to apologize on behalf of his colleague and return the stolen watch after realizing that the subject of the crime was a fake was. “They came back and said ‘sorry, sorry,’ maybe to try not to get it reported.”
hundreds of thousands of euros
The disappointment must have been great for the Neapolitan thieves, because the watch was an imitation of a Richard Mille, a luxury watch whose units are worth several hundred thousand euros.
Robbery prosecution is a growing problem in Naples and gangster confidence is growing, said Francesco Borrelli, a consultant in the Campania region. So much so that they allow themselves to point a gun at the head of a tourist sitting on a bar terrace in the middle of a key square in the city center. In June, the city’s tourism director urged hotels to provide plastic watches to customers during their stay.
The speed with which the thieves returned shows how well organized they are at snatching. “They take the watches and immediately resell them,” Borrelli told CNN, but the people they take them to are good and can tell if they’re fake.” So this process takes a full seven minutes.