A drug lord belonging to the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, has been extradited from Brazil to Italy after his arrest last year after 27 years on the run, Interpol and Italian authorities announced on Wednesday (July 6th).
Wanted since 1995 by Italian justice for drug trafficking, Rocco Morabito, 56, had been sentenced by default in his native country to 28 years in prison, a sentence later increased to 30 years in prison. He was the subject of an Interpol red notice and wasone of the most wanted fugitives in the world“, underlines a press release from the organization based in Lyon. His extraditionsends a strong message: as powerful as the criminal network of mafia groups is, our global police network is stronger“, welcomed in this press release Giovanni Bombardieri, chief prosecutor of the anti-mafia prosecution of Reggio Calabria in Calabria.
630 kilos of cocaine
Arrested in Uruguay in September 2017 and then escaped from prison in June 2019 through his roof, Rocco Morabito was captured in May 2021 in Joao Pessoa, a city located in northeastern Brazil. He arrived with his escort of Italian carabinieri on Wednesday morning at Rome-Ciampino airport. Among other crimes, he is accused of transporting drugs to Italy, selling them in Milan, and then of trying to import 592 kilos of cocaine from Brazil in 1992 and 630 kilos of cocaine in 1993. Italian had resided for 13 years under another identity in the posh Uruguayan seaside resort of Punta del Este, 140 km from the capital.
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He had obtained Uruguayan papers in 2004 by presenting a Brazilian passport in the name of Francisco Capeletto. He was finally spotted after enrolling his daughter in college under her real identity. Rocco Morabito had escaped arrest in 1994 in Milan, where he was nicknamed the “king of cocaine“. Originally from Africo, a Calabrian village, he was one of the most important leaders of the clan “Africo Nuovo“.
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