Italy has been shocked by a heist in which masked men armed with Kalashnikovs set fire to a lorry, barricaded a motorway and stole at least £1.7 million (two million euros) worth of cash and gold bullion from a security van.
The commando-style raid, which police said was meticulously planned by professionals, was compared to Hollywood films such as Heat, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
The gunmen used two articulated lorries to block a pair of armoured vans carrying cash and gold ingots on a highway in northern Italy.
They set fire to one of the lorries and then used explosive charges to break into one of the armoured vans.
They ignored the second van, which was empty, suggesting they had inside knowledge of the shipment.
The daring raid took place at around 7am on Monday on the A9 road that leads towards the Swiss border, near the town of Saronno.
The bandits opened fire with their AK-47 semi-automatic rifles, forcing security guards out of the vans.
Up to 30 rounds were fired, with at least two bullets hitting the front windscreen of one of the white vans. None of the guards was injured in the heist, which was over within minutes.
Some news reports put the amount of gold and cash stolen at 10 million euros but Marco Meletti, a spokesman for the Gruppo Battistolli armoured transport company, said that was “exaggerated”.
“They are certainly a gang of professionals as the job was prepared down to every detail,” he told the Ansa news agency.
Some of the gunmen spoke Italian, but there was speculation in the Italian press that others may have been former soldiers from the Balkans, who specialise in such military-style robberies.
The gang of around a dozen gunmen escaped in three vehicles after scattering sharp spikes on the road to puncture the tyres of pursuing police cars.
The escape cars were later found abandoned near a farmhouse. The hold-up caused long tailbacks on the motorway, which leads from Milan to Como.
- Telegraph (UK)