Italian investigators said on Tuesday that they had prevented a criminal plot to steal the body of automotive legend and Formula One racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari. The scheme involved using two cars and a van, breaking into San Cataldo cemetery, absconding with the corpse, and then holding it for ransom.
Just imagine the incredible movie that would have resulted from the heist had the police not immediately foiled the plan. It would have equal parts The Italian Job and Weekend at Bernie’s.
Così buono.
According to Reuters, authorities discovered the plan during a series of investigations relating to arms and drug trafficking across Italy. Hundreds of military and police personnel conducted a string of raids, including some conducted by parachute, resulting in the arrest of dozens of mafia suspects in Sardinia, Lombardy, Tuscany, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna in the process.
Several members of the group had apparently been plotting to swipe Ferrari’s body in the near future. One had even done some preliminary scout work at the gravesite. After acquiring the coffin, the crew intended to hide in the Apennine Mountains while demanding a ransom from the Ferrari family or company.
Thanks to swift action from the Italian military, Enzo’s body remains unmolested in an above-ground tomb in Modena, just sixteen miles from the Ferrari plant at Maranello. He died on August 14th, 1988 at the ripe old age of 90.
[Image: Ferrari]
Who would pay to retrieve it?
They’d be better off kidnapping a living person.
I doubt that there would be much of a corpse left to ransom. Not much of the remains remain. The guy died 27 years ago.
Assuming he was embalmed with modern methods and in a reasonably well-sealed casket, you would be surprised how well preserved he could be.
Worked for a funeral home in HS.
tru nuff
They mean bones, right?
“What have you got in the garage?”
“Oh, just an old dead Ferrari.”
Cue Statler and Waldorf “dohohohoho”ing from the balcony.
If scheme had happened, there would be no ransom. What would happen is finding Enzo’s body, abandoned by side of the road, in the broke-down Fiat getaway van.
+1 Ha!
I want those shades.
Crack the tomb!
Exactly! The Secret Service prevented the kidnapping of Lincoln’s body, but they opened the casket, just to make sure he was still in it. They should do that with Enzo. It would allow the Ferrari family to say that’s not his body, it was buried privately elsewhere, and put an end to future attempts.
BTW, Lincoln’s son was so unnerved by the failed plot, that he had the above ground mausoleum in Springfield torn down, and a 50 foot deep hole dug. The casket was suspended in the middle of a cage of rebar and lowered into the hole, and 300 cubic feet of concrete poured over it. The hole was refilled, and the new memorial built right over it. There’s a sarcophagus in the basement room, but it’s empty – it’s just right over the casket that’s 30 feet down.
Lincoln was easy, the beard was a dead giveway.
Here you go:
http://www.ray-ban.com/usa/sunglasses/wayfarer/clv
If they didn’t get a ransom, the grave robbers were plotting to turn Enzio into a zombie and make him build counterfeit Ferraris.