Coriano (Rimini), June 6, 2026 – A well-planned phone call, a story of economic hardship, and an apparently credible request for help. But the plan failed thanks to the intuition of a priest from the Rimini area who realized he was facing an attempted scam and immediately alerted the carabinieri.
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The protagonist of the story is a 50-year-old Sicilian man, arrested by the Coriano military while collecting an envelope containing almost 500 euros.
The man was arrested in flagrante delicto by the carabinieri of the Coriano station, at the end of a lightning investigation coordinated by deputy prosecutor Davide Ercolani, after attempting to defraud the parish priest of the Santa Maria Assunta parish in Coriano. When the military intervened, he still had the envelope with the newly received money in his hands.
It all started with a phone call to the priest
According to what was reconstructed, it all started with a phone call received by the priest. On the other end of the line was a man who introduced himself as a religious figure from Rome. The story was meticulously planned: a young family man out of work, with a wife and two small children to support, who had finally found a job in the Rimini area but needed immediate financial help to rent a house.
To make the story even more credible, the self-proclaimed prelate would have even compared the incident to that of the so-called ‘family in the woods’, trying to evoke empathy and emotion in the priest. Other figures then revolved around the story: a presumed surveyor tasked with finding accommodation and a worker who was supposed to collect the money needed to complete the operation.
The priest’s intuition thwarts the plan
An elaborate construction that, however, did not convince the parish priest of Coriano. From the very first phone call, the priest had a feeling that something was amiss. Instead of breaking off contact, he decided to feign interest and in the meantime alerted the carabinieri. From that moment, the operation began, allowing investigators to follow every step of the alleged scam in real time.
The initial financial request was close to 500 euros. After a series of phone calls and negotiations, an appointment was set directly at the rectory for the delivery of the money.
Shortly after lunchtime, the man tasked with collecting the envelope appeared. According to investigators, it was the same 50-year-old who had previously played other roles in the affair. Having entered the rectory, he received the money and headed towards the exit.
The 50-year-old was already known to the police
Waiting for him, however, were the carabinieri. The military intervened immediately, blocking him as he exited the religious building with the envelope still in his hand. The arrest took place on the spot, and during the investigations, the phones used to maintain contact with the priest were also seized.
Subsequent checks revealed a profile already known to law enforcement. According to what emerged, the 50-year-old has a history of proceedings related to at least eight scams and specializes in defrauding the elderly and people considered more vulnerable. Similar incidents have reportedly been contested in several Italian provinces, including Como, Milan, and Novara.
For the man, in addition to the arrest in flagrante delicto, a notification of an aggravation of sentence ordered by the Court of Varese also arrived. In the coming hours, he will appear before the judge for the fast-track trial, assisted by lawyer Francesco Valentini of the Rome Bar.
