ROME: Rocco Morabito, the second most-wanted meandering in Italy and a bigwig in the powerful ‘Ndrangheta mafia, was flown to Rome on Wednesday (Jul 6) after being extradited from Brazilian ending some 28 years on the run.
Morabito, who was arrested in Brazilian in May 2021, will serve a 30-year prison sentence for various drug accidents.
“He was obviously a major architect within the internationalisation of the (crime) gangs and grew to become the king of cocaine brokers, inch Nicola Morra, head of parliament’s anti-mafia commission, wrote upon Facebook.
The interior ministry said Morabito had been included in its “special search programme” for absconded criminals. Italy’s number one fugitive is Matteo Messina Denaro, a boss of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra mafia who has been on the run considering that 1993.
Morabito, 56, had convictions for international medication trafficking from individual cases in the Italian language cities of Milan, Palermo and Reggio Calabria. Investigators say he was the point person for the ‘Ndrangheta in South America.
The ‘Ndrangheta relies in the southern region of Calabria, the particular toe of Italy’s boot, and has exceeded Cosa Nostra to be the most powerful mafia group in the country : and one of the biggest crime gangs on the planet.
Morabito was arrested, along with one more fugitive drugs trafficker, in the Brazilian associated with João Pessoa, some four years after he had managed to escape from jail within Uruguay.
He had been tracked down to Uruguay in 2017 and was residing under an kryptonym at the time, using a false Brazilian passport.
In recent years, Brazil has become a key player in the transatlantic drug industry, with its gangs braiding up with Italian, Dutch and Balkan players to move record loads of cocaine to European countries, lured by high prices and increasing demand.
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