Italian police are trying to catch a suspected thief by fingerprinting a digit he accidentally cut off on barbed wire while fleeing the scene of a robbery, although they hope the suspect will surrender in the hopes of retrieving his lost wedding ring.
The injured man sent a friend back to the area, a recycling plant in Milan, to search for his body part and the ring, but the friend was spotted by a security guard rummaging through leaves, local media reported.
When the guard at the plant asked him what he was doing, he reportedly responded calmly: “I’m here for a friend, I’m looking for his finger with a ring on it.”
Before police could arrive, the man escaped with an accomplice who had been waiting in a nearby parked car.
The finger, or specifically two phalanges of a right ring finger, were found poking out of rubbish close to the fence of the recycling plant a little later, but without the ring, according to Corriere della Sera newspaper. It was not clear if the police had since found the ring.
In CCTV images captured from the night before, two men were seen climbing over the fence of the recycling plant, only to abandon their attempted break-in after being spotted by a security guard who activated the alarm. As they clambered back over a gate, one of the men got his finger entangled in the barbed wire.
The digit is being kept at a morgue while police work to identify its owner through the fingerprint ID system.
It is not the first time a thief in Italy has been injured during an attempted burglary. In October last year a man who
tried to imitate the suave master thief in the French TV series Lupin injured his arm while smashing through the glass door of the church oratory he was attempting to burgle.
Friend of suspect in Italy who returned to scene of robbery told guard he was looking for a ‘finger with a ring on it’
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