Summer in Italy Is a Bonanza for Thieves

As summer drew to a close, Italy’s ever-inventive thieves were counting the loot at the end of a season that brings some of their richest pickings.

For thieves at least, the summer means no holiday as they rush to exploit a particularly tempting range of targets from unsuspecting train passengers to tourists distracted by the wonders of ancient Rome and Italians leaving their city apartments during the sweltering heat.

As always, the imagination and creativity used by Italians in more legitimate pursuits come into play.

In May West German tourists found themselves minus luggage on Rome’s Termini Station after thieves uncoupled the baggage wagon of a Munich-Rome express just beyond the Brenner Pass.

Valuables Missing

In another case, 42 well-heeled travelers taking the Simplon express from Paris to Venice awoke in Italy from an unexpectedly deep slumber to find their jewelry and valuables missing.

Thieves had knocked them out by pumping sleeping gas through the air-conditioning of their compartments--a variation of a technique also used to rob wealthy householders in Rome.

But even without the gas, nighttime theft on trains is frequent.

West German Ruth Kollmer said she awoke around 4 a.m. on a Munich-to-Rome train in August and found a man in the compartment. He apologized and left. The next morning more than half the tourists in the sleeping car found they had been robbed.

The thieves apparently calmly stripped the sleeping passengers of their valuables and alighted at the next stop.

Even if they arrive safely in the cities, tourists have to watch out for motorcycle-borne purse snatchers or the hordes of Gypsy children whose technique consists of rushing into wealthy looking victims and dipping agile fingers into their pockets as they try to fend off the assault.

This is a kind of crime which rarely affects Italians, who are accustomed to keeping away from the Gypsies.

For Italians, however, burglaries are a constant risk that increases during the summer, when most people flee the cities for the cooler mountains or beaches.

Among the legions of caretakers responsible for the security of many of Rome’s apartment buildings the most closely guarded secret is the couple of days that they themselves plan to take at the seaside.

A New Meaning

To those living in ground-floor apartments, the phrase “summer break” takes on a new meaning. For them, the return from seaside or country villas in the expectation of finding their flat has been burgled is as much a part of the negative side of summer holidays as the traditional August rent increase.

The Italian Assn. of Consumers seriously advises householders going away in August to leave a 100,000-lire note--equal to about $70--prominently displayed in the hope that it will deter vandalism by burglars, especially if their efforts produce nothing worth stealing.

The frequency of burglaries has even prompted a major chain of department stores to adopt a new sales pitch--two-months’ worth of free household insurance to tide customers over the high-risk summer period if they spend more than $20 at their branches.

Like summer break-ins, the theft of cars and the valuables left in them is also an everyday fact of life.

It is no accident that Italy is a pioneer of retractable car radios or ingenious sliding panels to hide the radio in the dashboard, as well as alarms so sensitive that no Roman night seems complete without a chorus of sirens in the small hours.

There seems little prospect of a decline in theft, much of it practiced by a growing army of drug addicts, partly because the chances of being caught are minimal.