NAPLES – A Swiss tourist was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday evening and a few moments later, had his watch returned when the robber realised it was fake, authorities reported. 

 The two tourists were sat at a bar in Piazza Trieste e Trento, when one of them found himself held at gunpoint in front of all the other guests, and forced to hand over the watch. After taking the watch, the robber got into an SUV, drove away, and then proceeded to turn around and return the watch after discovering that it was a fake. 

 Mayor of Naples, Gaetano Manfredi commented, “The theme of robberies is not only a Neapolitan one: we see it in all big cities, even in Milan,” reassuring that “urban security is one of the biggest priorities and the central government must back us on this.” 

 “We have a continuous dialogue with the Prefecture and with the police to improve the defence especially in the areas most frequented by tourists. The security issue must be addressed on the one hand with the presence of the territory and with a better organisation of the police forces but also with actions on the video surveillance that we are putting in place.”

 Many of the public CCTV systems are faulty in the city, however Manfredi assures that actions are being taken on this front, “In the coming months we will have concrete results because there will be investments both on the maintenance and the installation of new cameras.” 

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