Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, November 3 2021 – There are 61 vehicles that the local police of Milan have withdrawn from circulation and 38 people are under investigation for various reasons, at the end of an investigation which made it possible to discover a complex scam carried out by the owner of a processing agency car manufacturers located in the Milan area, with the help of a network of conniving brokers and customers.

"Monster truck" is the name of the complex operation which, after telephone and environmental interceptions, tracking of profiles on sites and social networks and over 100 interrogations and testimonies, led to the discovery of a round of documents specially falsified so that SUVs and off-road vehicles, modified with non-approved parts could circulate freely and pass road checks.

"A crime within a crime – explains Security Councilor Marco Granelli –. The parts were first modified in a completely illegal way and outside of any rule of the Highway Code and then, thanks to the falsified document, they were approved. With serious risk for safety: in fact we are talking about oversized tyres, dangerous hooks, oversized bumpers, parts that made the vehicle potentially dangerous and effectively without insurance coverage".

"This operation – declares the commander of the local police Marco Ciacci – testifies to the high professionalism and investigative skills of our agents and commissioners, capable of discovering a scam which, thanks to specialized sites and forums for enthusiasts, was capable of attracting customers throughout Italy. We hope the message passes, especially to young people, that compliance with the rules comes first, to protect the safety of those who drive and of all road users."

To falsify the registration certificate, the owner of the agency opened a procedure for the execution of the duplicate "due to deterioration - illegible data". At that point, thanks to a "template" that reproduced the same characters and identical positioning of the information, the new "false" certificate was printed, with the non-approved characteristics requested by the customer.

In fact, the data registered at the Civil Motorization Office remained unchanged, therefore in order; the copy of the booklet instead contained all the new parts of the vehicle, so as to evade any roadside checks.