Bologna, August 17, 2026 – It was just past midnight, between Friday and Saturday, when in the darkness of the night of the eve of Ferragosto two figures stood out in the middle of the garden of the villa of Elisabetta Franchi, the well-known Bolognese fashion designer.
The criminals cut the fence
Violating private property, taking advantage of the fact that no one was home, the pair of criminals first cut a part of the fence with a pair of wire cutters, sneaking into the garden through the gap made along the portion of the fence bordering another house.
The attempt to tamper with the cameras
Then, once inside the perimeter of the designer’s villa, the thieves also tried to tamper with some cameras of the video surveillance system. An attempt to slip away unnoticed up to the entrance of the actual house, where they then tried to force one of the doors.
The night guard foils the theft and the carabinieri arrive
An attempted theft that, however, did not fail to attract the attention of the villa’s night guard, from whom the alarm was then sent to the carabinieri.
Read more Fierce fight in a hotel in Cesenatico: an employee beaten up
The military police immediately rushed to the scene, but by the time the authorities arrived, there was no trace of the two criminals after they were driven away by the night guard’s first intervention, who noticed their unwanted presence in the garden after the tampering of the cameras.
No one was home at Elisabetta Franchi’s house
At the time of the break-in, no one was present in Franchi’s home and to force the fence through which they entered, the thieves would have used a pair of wire cutters or shears, although there is no trace of additional tools used to try to force the villa’s front door later. The situation is now being monitored by the carabinieri, with the possibility that in the coming days the well-known Bolognese designer will also file a formal complaint about the incident, thus giving impetus to the investigations to identify the two criminals who tried to steal from Elisabetta Franchi’s villa before being driven away by security.
