Italian mafia boss Rocco Morabito, a drug trafficker on the run since his escape from a Uruguayan prison in June 2019, was arrested on Monday, May 24, in the city of Joao Pessoa, in northeastern Brazil, according to the authorities. .
Rocco Morabito, considered the boss of the ‘Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia), was arrested “With another Italian fugitive”, whose identity has not been revealed, following a “Joint investigation between Brazil and Italy”, said the Brazilian Federal Police (PF) in a statement. He is one of Italy’s most wanted offenders, according to PF.
One of the ten most wanted criminals in the world
“There are traces of Rocco Morabito’s actions in the organization of drug trafficking between Brazil and Europe since the 1990s”, explained the PF, specifying that a press conference with details concerning the operation was to be held on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the 54-year-old man. Rocco Morabito had been wanted since 1995 by the Italian courts, accused of illegal association and drug trafficking, and had been sentenced in absentia to twenty-eight years in prison, then to thirty years.
The Italian, considered one of the ten most wanted criminals in the world, was arrested in 2017 in a hotel in Montevideo after having resided for thirteen years under a different identity in the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este.
Uruguayan justice approved his extradition to Italy in 2018, but, in June 2019, he had managed to escape from Montevideo central prison through his roof, and had since been on the run.
