Would-be jewel thieves caught digging 1,000 yard tunnel under targets

Suspicions had been aroused when two members of the gang were seen emerging
from a manhole clutching two-way radios which they were using to communicate
with each other.

Detectives sent in mountain rescue and caving experts to explore the
subterranean passage, which for part of its course ran along a sewer.

They found chisels, hammers and other tools scattered on the floor of the
tunnel, as well as a small generator to power the lights and hard hats
equipped with torches. The equipment was taken as evidence and handed over
to investigators in the nearby city of Catania.

The men were named as Mario Catalano, 43, Mario Lanzarotti, 48, Rosario
Albicocco, 22, and Salvatore Grasso, 38.

Aside from enterprising thieves, tunnels are also favoured by mafia gangsters
on the run, who use them as a ready means of escape should the police raid
their hide-outs.

In 2009 police
arrested an alleged mafia boss
who was hiding in an underground
bunker equipped with an unusual means of escape – a skateboard to propel
himself down a 200 yard secret tunnel.

Giuseppe Bastone’s hideout was a 10ft by 10ft space underneath a house near
Naples that was accessed through a hidden trapdoor underneath a stairway.
The tunnel led to a shaft which emerged in a field.

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