Wheels of justice turn (very) slowly: moped stolen in 1984 returned to owner

Garelli bike recovered by police in Italy after they spotted it without licence plate during roadside check A moped stolen from a northern Italian town in 1984 has been traced and returned to its rightful owner after four decades. The case of the missing moped – a dark grey Garelli that these days might be classified as vintage – was finally cracked by police in Volpiano, a suburb of Turin, after they spotted a 64-year-old man travelling without a licence plate during a roadside check. “This guy was riding this scooter without a licence plate and so he was stopped,” said Americo Celani, commander of the Carabinieri in Volpiano. “This gave us an indication that something was wrong.” A distinguishing feature of the stolen Garelli was that it did not have a licence plate because registration was not legally required on 50cc mopeds in Italy until 1994, a decade after Antonio Smiglio’s vehicle was stolen from outside his home in Vado Ligure, a town in the Liguria region where his family lived. Celani said police were also able to match the moped by the details on its frame and using various past reports. “So through that we traced the fact that this moped had been stolen 42 years ago.”