It was a call like the others, between a customer and the director of Credito di Arborea, in Santa Giusta . Then the tone of the banker's voice suddenly changed: "There's a robbery, there's a robbery." He had just seen the two men enter the branch, armed and with distorted faces. On the other end of the phone, the woman wasted no time, immediately alerting the police.
It happened last February 2nd . A readiness that allowed the operations center of the provincial command of the Carabinieri of Oristano to take immediate action, blocking all exit routes from Santa Giusta with patrol cars. Not the only help that the military received from the citizens, as illustrated by Lieutenant Colonel Paolo Montorsi, commander of the Oristano company. Because in the bank, that day and at that time, there was also a retired carabiniere: it was he who stopped the second robber , Antonio Marras (65 year old from Serrenti), after the first had already managed to escape from the bank. He knocked him out, taking away what later turned out to be a toy gun: in the meantime, thanks to the customer's call, the commander of the Santa Giusta station arrived (just 50 meters from the branch), who helped him immobilize the criminal.
The other bandit remained to be found, and the details of the operation were illustrated by lieutenant colonel Mariano Lai, commander of the investigative unit of the Oristano operations department, who reconstructed the three days (and a little more) of the escape. In particular, at the time of the crime, the robber was on probation with social services in a community in Villamassargia: Marco Orrù, 48, had been convicted of the murder of a jeweler committed in Brescia (where the family had emigrated ), during a robbery in 1999. The military initially looked for him there: they had traced his identity, thanks to the documents and clothes found in his accomplice's car. When it became clear that the man would not return to the community, there was a change in research, with the analysis of video surveillance images between Santa Giusta, Serramanna (his town of origin) and Villamassargia itself.
It was Serramanna who offered the turning point, with the police raid inside a house owned by the family, albeit uninhabited: beds unmade, food consumed. The robber had just left. The focus shifted to Brescia, with the military identifying the Lombard city as a possible destination for the man, paying attention to ports and airports. And right at the port of Cagliari the handcuffs went off: the bandit was trying to take the ferry to Civitavecchia. The police waited for him on board, after having put on the Grimaldi staff bibs : "I didn't expect it," said the robber at the time of the arrest.
(Unioneonline/L.Ne.)