Enzo Ferrari, right, with British racer John Surtees, at the Monza racing track in Italy in September 1964.

AP</s>Italian authorities have foiled a plot by a gang of organized criminals to steal the body of automotive legend Enzo Ferrari from its resting place in Modena. Italian investigators reported that the gang were planning to ransom the body of the Formula 1 marque patron after stealing it from the San Cataldo cemetery.

In a sequence of raids by 300 military and police personnel, 34 arrests were made across Italy. The gang – which is connected with drug and gun smuggling activities – was based in Orgosolo in Sardinia, with other members from Emilia, Lombardy, Veneto and Tuscany also placed in custody.

Their plan was to steal the coffin of Ferrari, who died at the age of 90 in 1988, and take refuge in the Apennine Mountains while demanding a ransom from the Ferrari family or company. One of the gang members had already scoped out the daring raid on the tomb, and the plot involved using two cars and a van.

Following a request by the regional anti-Mafia directorate, Italian military and police swooped in before the plan could be carried out.</s>A massive operation involving 300 officers of the military police arrested 34 members of a criminal gang involved in drug and arms trafficking in Sardinia and northern Italy on 28 March.

The gang had also been plotting to steal the corpse of Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the famous luxury car company to blackmail his family for the body's return.

The plan was devised in November 2015 and the gang made repeated trips to the cemetery in the central Italian town of Modena, where Ferrari was buried after his death in 1988. The authorities arrested the gang as it was about to enact the plan.

"The gang had planned it all down to the smallest details" explained Colonel Saverio Ceglie who was heading the operation, at a press conference. "The plan had been in place for years but did not succeed due to our intervention", he said, quoted by Italian news agency Ansa. The authorities had warned the Ferrari family, who were aware of everything.

The investigation into the gang's criminal activities, which had been going on for almost a decade, began when the gang kidnapped local bank director Giampaolo Cosseddu and his wife Pietrina Secce in October 2007.

In the course of the police operation, the authorities confiscated large quantities of cocaine and weed, as well as firearms. Drug and arms trafficking were the gang's two main revenue streams.</s>After many months plotting, an Italian drug gang was finally ready to dig up the body of the founder of automaker Ferrari and hold it for ransom, NBC News reported.

But police swooped in Tuesday, arresting 34 people before they could raid the ornate tomb of Enzo Ferrari at San Cataldo cemetery in central Italy, the Italian carabinieri announced.

Officers were staking out Ferrari's tomb when the bandits arrived, after learning about the plot from an investigation of a legendary Italian kidnapper, police said.

"The gang had prepared everything in detail," said Col. Saverio Ceglie.</s>An Italian drug gang needed money, so it devised a bizarre plot, Italian police said — it would dig up the body of legendary automaker Enzo Ferrari and hold it for ransom.

In a massive raid involving hundreds of officers, 34 people were arrested Tuesday in Sardinia and northern Italy just as the gang was about to launch its scheme, 1½ years in the making, at the tomb shared by Ferrari and his father in Modena, in central Italy, police said at a news conference.

Ferrari died at age 90 in in 1988 and was buried alongside his father inside the ornate tomb at San Cataldo cemetery, complete with a model Ferrari perched on top. Modena is where Ferrari founded the luxury car company in 1939 as Auto Avio Costruzioni.

At least 11 other people are under further investigation after officers also seized an unspecified but large amount of cocaine and arms, police said.

Col. Saverio Ceglie, head of the carabinieri, or military police, in the province of Nuoro, said the gang is part of Anonima Sequestri, known as the kidnapping specialists of organized crime operations on the Italian island of Sardinia.

It is associated with the post-World War II bandit operation run by Graziano Mesina, a legendary figure known as the "Scarlet Pimpernel of Italy," who has been the subject of many scholarly books and at least two popular biopics. Mesina, who turns 76 next week, has been in prison for kidnapping plots since December.

Police said they got wind of the gang during their latest investigation of Mesina, which began almost a decade ago, and were staking out Ferrari's tomb when the bandits arrived.

"The gang had prepared everything in detail," Ceglie said. They made several visits to the tomb over more than a year of planning, and individual members were identified as being in charge of drawing up the plans, stealing the body itself and delivering the ransom demand to the Ferrari family, he said.

Ceglie said the Ferraris were kept in the loop about the plot, which he said had been "in the works for years but never succeeded because of our extensive efforts."</s>Ferraris have been stolen before, but Ferrari himself?!

Italian investigators working a drug and arms smuggling case say they uncovered a plot to steal the body of Enzo Ferrari from his grave and hold it for ransom.

Ferrari’s remains lay in an above-ground family tomb in the city of Modena, not far from the headquarters of the automobile company he founded in 1939. Ferrari died in 1988, age 90.

Authorities say the Sardinia-based gang had everything planned out, including an escape into the Apennine Mountains where they would hide the body until the ransom was paid, according to Motorsport.com.

But on Tuesday, 300 police and military rounded up 34 members of the gang in raids across Italy before they could pull of the gruesome heist.

Read more: Ferrari abandoned on London street for two years finally gets the boot</s>Investigators in Italy claim they stopped a plot to steal the body of Enzo Ferrari and demand ransom money.Speaking to the press, police in Nuoro on the island of Sardinia revealed that they uncovered a plan where a gang would steal the body of Enzo and demand ransom money from either the Ferrari family or the company itself.No further details about the plan were revealed by police but they said it was uncovered while carrying out an investigation into arms and drug trafficking, CNN reports.In total, 34 people were arrested.Ferrari's body resides in a family tomb in the San Cataldo cemetery in Modena</s>Italian authorities said Tuesday that they’d foiled a plot concocted by Sardinian bandits to break into a cemetery in Modena, Italy, abscond with the coffin of Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari and hold his remains for ransom.

The would-be tomb raiders belonged to Anonima Sequestri, a group with a history of kidnapping the living and demanding money for their victims’ release, according to CNN.

Some 300 members of Italian law enforcement agencies, including police as well as paratroopers, were involved in nabbing 34 suspects, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported. They were members of a crime syndicate based in the city of Orgosolo on the isle of Sardinia, authorities said.

The gang had cased the San Cataldo cemetery of Modena, the Italian city where Ferrari was born and founded his vehicular empire, and planned an escape route into the Apennine Mountains on the Italian Peninsula.</s>The body of auto racing legend Enzo Ferrari was at the center of an Italian gang's bizarre plot to raise some cash.

Police on the Italian island of Sardinia said they had foiled a plot by a criminal gang to steal Ferrari's body and hold it for ransom, Agence France-Presse reports . The discovery was made during another investigation into a large group of drug and arms traffickers who were exploring other ways to turn a profit. The group of more than 30 gangsters were arrested by around 300 officers on Tuesday.

Police said the gang had already come up with detailed plans to snatch Ferrari's coffin, hide it, and demand money from the family for its safe return.

Ferrari, a motor racing driver who went on to establish the eponymous Formula One team and auto brand, was buried in Modena, in northern Italy, after his death in 1988. According to AFP, his remains are interred behind a marble plate in a large chapel secured with an iron gate.</s>ROME – Enzo Ferrari, the legend of Italian automotive manufacturing, died in 1988 at age 90. It marked the end of a lifetime devoted to constructing fabulously fast and expensive sports cars. “I build racing cars with the same feverish pleasure with which drug addicts sniff cocaine,” he once remarked.

For close to three decades his body lay undisturbed in a tomb in the San Cataldo cemetery of Modena, the Italian city where Ferrari was born and founded his vehicular empire.

He was so successful that, in death, his corpse inspired greed among the Italy’s criminal element. Italian authorities said Tuesday they’d foiled a plot concocted by Sardinian bandits to break into the cemetery, abscond with Ferrari’s casket and hold his remains for ransom.

The would-be tomb raiders belonged to Anonima Sequestri, a group with a history of kidnapping the living and demanding money for their victims’ release.

Some 300 members of Italian law enforcement, including police as well as paratroopers, were involved in nabbing 34 suspects, the Italian newspaper La Stampa reported. They were members of a crime syndicate based in the city of Orgosolo on the isle of Sardinia, authorities said.

The gang had already cased the cemetery and planned an escape route into the Apennine Mountains on the Italian peninsula. The heist was disrupted as part of an effort to curb drug trafficking on the island, La Stampa noted, as well as the flow of Kalashnikovs and other firearms.
Italian police arrest 34 people of a drug gang who reportedly planned to steal Enzo Ferrari's corpse, and hold it for ransom.