Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The Elio Car Rental gang stopped: the candidates were provided with micro-cameras and earphones, they paid from 3 to 4 thousand euros to guarantee the theory exam

Milan, January 31 2020 – The operation carried out by the decentralized Command 8 of the local police has been named 'License for all', with the help of the IT and telematic crimes unit in the final phase. The investigation, coordinated by the Deputy Public Prosecutor Cristiana Roveda within the second crimes against the Public Administration department, led to the preventive seizure of a former driving school in Milan, renamed 'Autonoleggio Elio', and searches also in other municipalities of Lombardy and Veneto and to the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate 5 people for criminal association and for the crime of "Repression of the false attribution of the work of others by aspirants to the award of degrees, diplomas, offices, titles and public dignities ” (art. 2 of law no. 475 of 1925), for the purpose of obtaining a driving license.

The investigation began in November 2018, following a series of complaints against several subjects, discovered by the local police staff of the decentralized command 8 while they were supervising the theoretical exam sessions for obtaining a driving license. at the Civil Motorization of Milan. The candidates framed the PC screen with a camera hidden in an item of clothing - suitably prepared with a small hole - to read the questions and have the answers suggested remotely through a micro-earpiece inserted into the ear. The instrumentation was also completed with a modem for data transmission and a battery for the operation of the instruments, all fixed to the candidate's body with adhesive tape or other elastic bands by the organizers of the criminal activity.

From the revelations of one of the candidates, the existence of a real gang emerged which, starting from the approach of both Italian and foreign people, offered them this opportunity in exchange for variable remunerations from 3.000 to 4.000 euros: a figure which was established depending on the nationality of the candidates.

“Road safety is an important issue in every large city – underlines the Commander of the local police of Milan Marco Ciacci – and protecting all road users is one of the fundamental principles of our work. Operations like this are very important to pursue this objective, because they allow us to prevent people who do not even have basic knowledge of the Highway Code from circulating on the roads with motor vehicles. I really want to thank the officers who carried out with perseverance and tenacity a demanding investigation like this, which ended up involving, in the final phase of the searches and seizure, 45 officers and 7 officers of the local police, to whom everything goes our gratitude for having stopped an illicit activity that put everyone's safety at risk."

The activity, which lasted several months with shadowing, observation of places, checks, analysis of telephone records, cell crossings, patrimonial investigations, made it possible to outline an organizational structure in which, around the owner of the car rental, a Moroccan citizen who took care of the bureaucratic part, and an Italian citizen who has always been in the world of driving schools, other people rotated, an Italian father and son, who acted respectively as customer procurer and prompter, and a Romanian citizen, who took care of procure technological supports and 'adapt' them to the candidates.

The former driving school, renamed 'Autonoleggio Elio', turned out to be the point of reference for the different phases of the activity: it was there, in fact, inside a basement, that the candidates changed clothes to put on the technological equipment before going to the DMV to take the theory exam. The crime hypothesized by the Public Prosecutor's Office punishes anyone who replaces or helps third parties to obtain a necessary qualification, in this case a driving licence. The expected penalty is imprisonment from a minimum of one to a maximum of three years, based on the habitual nature of the criminal conduct, which can reach up to ten years, for criminal association.

During the searches, all the evidentiary elements necessary to commit the crime were found and seized: technological instruments (micro-earphones, modems, micro-cameras, SIM cards, etc.), clothing to be provided to the candidates and more than 20.000 euros in cash. Local police investigators are also examining receipts and informal accounts, PCs and USB sticks and personal cell phones of the suspects.