Prolific Athens burglar charged in 12-count indictment

Giancarlo Arcesi

By Joe Johnson

A Clarke County grand jury this week returned a 12-count indictment that charges a man who allegedly burglarized multiple Athens storage units and stole numerous guns from them.

Giancarlo Arcesi, 37, of Nicholson, charged in Tuesday’s indictment with eight counts of burglary, two counts of theft by deception, theft by receiving stolen property and possession of tools for the commission of a crime.

Athens-Clarke County detectives called Arcesi a prolific thief who in the course of about a month this year burglarized numerous storage units from which in which he allegedly stole property that included more than 30 guns.

Arcesi is alleged by police to have committed most of the burglaries at StorageMart on Collins Industrial Boulevard, where he rented a unit of his own.

Arcesi admitted he burglarized numerous units there and elsewhere, police said, explaining he used a lock-picking kit to open the storage units.

During the burglaries, the Arcesi allegedly stole tools, guns, ammo, among other property, according to police.

"The majority of the 30+plus guns were sold to people he knew in Athens and Winder” a detective said.

Arcesi was initially arrested on Feb. 4 after a detective who had obtained warrants on him alerted a uniformed patrol officer that he was following a Toyota 4Runner that was being operated by Arcesi, according to an Athens-Clarke County police report. The officer followed the vehicle into a McDonald’s parking lot, where he was arrested.

The warrants stemmed from an investigation by Property Crimes Unit detectives of multiple burglaries of storage units here in Athens-Clarke County, some of which had firearms stolen from them.

Evidence was obtained linking Arcesi to those burglaries and search warrants were subsequently served on various locations associated with Arcesi, police said, leading to the recovery of property that had been stolen from multiple storage units.

Some of the stolen guns have been recovered, but there are additional guns missing that Arcesi is believed to have already sold, according to police.

Detectives also executed a warrant to search Arcesi's vehicle, from which additional suspected stolen guns were recovered.

Arcesi was arrested and charged at the time with three counts of second-degree burglary and one count each of theft by deception and criminal trespass/interference with property.

The deception crimes were for selling stolen guns to a pawn shop, police said, and the property crime was for damaging gun safes that Arcesi allegedly broke into to steal guns from them.

Police believe that more crimes might be linked to Arcesi when people who infrequently check their storage units discover that property was missing.

According to police, Arcesi also rented a storage Unit at StayLock on Hull Road, where he was linked to an additional burglary. Police said he was suspected of stealing two guns from a Dacula Self Storage in Gwinnett County, where Arcesi rented another unit.

Arcesi was released from the county jail on Feb.18, upon posting a $10,000 bond, with the conditions he wear a GPS monitor and abide by a nighttime curfew.

In the meantime, detectives linked Arcesi to additional crimes, and when arrested a second time, on March 22, he was served with warrants charging him with two additional burglaries, police said.

An arraignment date for Arcesi had yet to be scheduled as of Wednesday