Overview
- The 16‑ and 12‑year‑old sisters were located by Carabinieri in an apartment in the Rio Fresco district of Formia on Sunday, June 21, and were taken to a protected location under local authority care.
- On June 22 prosecutors in Sulmona ordered the detention of the mother Valentina D'Acunto, her companion Vincenzo Esposito and the mother's father Marco D'Acunto on charges of sequestro di persona (kidnapping).
- Investigators say the breakthrough came from telecommunications work that traced a video call to a monitored number and that phone intercepts and analysis of SIM cards indicate an organized effort and deliberate depistaggio to hide and move the girls.
- The case is rooted in a long custody dispute: the sisters had lived in a juvenile community for about two years and parental responsibility had been restored to their father by a court on May 28, a development prosecutors view as key context for the removal.
- Next steps include formal convalida of the detentions, protected interviews with the minors, reconstruction of who aided the concealment, and decisions by child‑protection authorities about the girls' longer‑term placement.