Italian jailed for fleecing church’s charity box

Marco Tabarelli was sentenced to five months and 10 days in prison for theft from the church in Loreo, in Italy’s Veneto region.

Tabarelli had been caught using a measuring stick wrapped in tape to fish money out of the charity box, Il Gazzettino Rovigo reported on Monday.

After money first went missing in November, plain-clothed police kept watch over the church and waited for the thief to reappear.

They noticed 40-year-old Tabarelli would walk around the church, kneeling, praying and lighting candles, before homing in on his target.

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