ROME – Eight to ten hooded men armed with automatic weapons opened fire on a caravan of armoured cars Wednesday morning on Sardinia’s Carlo Felice State Highway 131, police said. The commando fled south from a shootout with police and carabinieri by FIAT Panda and pickup truck, leaving eight injured and making off with an estimated four million euros in cash. 

 Just before 8:30 A.M. at the Siligo Junction, the robbers used chains, nails, and a garbage truck to stop traffic on HIghway 131 — Sardinia's main north-south artery — and block the path of three armoured cars belonging to Vigilpol, a Sassari-based security company. 

 A first Vigilpol car struck the trash compactor and spun 180 degrees. Armed with Kalashnikovs and outfitted in bulletproof vests, the men then opened fire on all three cars and their security teams. One Vigilpol employee took a bullet to the leg. Three others were injured by the trash-truck collision. 

 The bandits used circular saws to open the safes of two armoured cars, police said. Initial reports estimate the value of their loot at 4 million euros, all in cash.

 Witnesses at the scene say about ten minutes passed between the start of the blockade and police and carabinieri's arrival at the scene. In a brief shootout with law enforcement one member of the commando was injured. The others set fire to a number of a vehicles, including one parked car packed with explosives, before heading towards Mores in a FIAT panda and a pickup truck.

 Patrol teams have since found both cars burned on side roads, along with another car packed with undenotated exploives. 

 118 transported the injured Vigilpol drivers and guards, the injured highwayman, and a three bystanders hurt in the traffic pileup to hospitals in Ozieri and Sassari. 

 More than 100 police and carabinieri are engaged in a Sardinia-wide manhunt by car and helicopter, and police have set up checkpoints throughout the province. There is no trace of the commando. Police have no leads, they say. 

 Vigilpol has been through this before. The Unione Sarda reported in November 2022 that  six to ten men used a van and a makeshift spike strip to barricade route 131 between Thiesi and Giave, blocking the path of a Vigilpol armoured car.  

 The men opened fire on the car, injuring two Vigilpol employees and a girl at the scene. After a shootout with police and carabinieri, the bandits fled in two cars — later found burned on side roads in Nuoro — with an estimated 1 million euros in loot. Neither the men nor the money has been found.