Italy's second-most-wanted mobster is extradited from Brazil
BY FRANCES D’EMILIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 6, 2022 7:52 AM PT
ROME — A convicted mobster who was one of Italy’s most-wanted fugitives and reputedly one of the world’s most powerful drug brokers arrived in Rome on Wednesday following his extradition by Brazil after 28 years on the lam.
Rocco Morabito held the No. 2 position on the list of Italy’s most-wanted and dangerous mobsters. He was convicted two decades ago in absentia of drug-trafficking as part of the ’Ndrangheta organized-crime syndicate, which does billions of dollars in cocaine business.
Italian police describe him as one of the world’s top drug brokers. Morabito, 55, must serve a 30-year prison sentence after being convicted in absentia by a court in Milan in 2001. He was arrested in May 2021 by Brazilian police in a joint operation with Italian and U.S. investigators. Morabito had earlier been arrested in Uruguay in 2017, but escaped from prison there two years later.
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Calabria-based anti-Mafia prosecutors say Morabito played a big role in cocaine trafficking between South America and Milan, a key distribution point for the drug to be sold elsewhere in Italy and across Europe.
More:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-07-06/italy-second-most-wanted-mobster-extradited-brazil
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Rocco Morabito: Fugitive mobster handed over to Italy
By Vanessa Buschschlüter
BBC News
Published
8 hours ago
EVARISTO SA
Rocco Morabito (centre) was on the run for decades in Uruguay and Brazil
One of Italy's most wanted men, mobster Rocco Morabito, has arrived in Rome after being extradited from Brazil, where he had been in hiding.
Known as the "cocaine king of Milan", Morabito was arrested in May last year in a joint operation by Brazilian and Italian police.
The 55-year-old will serve a 30-year prison sentence for drug trafficking.
The mafia boss spent decades on the run using a fake identity in South America.
Police finally tracked him down last year to João Pessoa, a port city in north-eastern Brazil, where he was arrested along with another member of the 'Ndrangheta mafia group, Vincenzo Pasquino. Pasquino has since been sentenced to 17 years in prison for drug trafficking.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62061407