After 28 years on the run, the “cocaine king” is finally in the grip of Italy

After on the run for 28 years, Italy finally took over its compatriot Rocco Morabito, one of the world’s most wanted mafia men.

Brazil has extradited Morabito, a drug dealer who belongs to the ‘Ndrangheta Mafia, in the Italian region of Calabria, to his country of origin, after his arrest last year, according to the International Police (Interpol) and the Italian authorities, Wednesday.

Morabito, 56, who has been prosecuted by the Italian judiciary since 1994 on charges of drug trafficking, was sentenced in his home country to 28 years in prison, a period that was later tightened to 30 years.

And the Interpol organization, which is based in the French city of Lyon, said in a statement that “Murabito, who was wanted under a red notice issued, was one of the most wanted men in the world.”
Giovanni Bombardieri, chief prosecutor at the Anti-Mafia Public Prosecution Office in Calabria, said in the statement that Morabito’s extradition “sends a strong message that no matter how powerful the criminal network of mafia groups is, our global police network is stronger.”

Morabito was arrested in Uruguay in September 2017, then escaped from prison in June 2019 through a hole in the ceiling, and was arrested again in May 2021 in the city of Joao Pessoa, northeastern Brazil.
He arrived at Rome’s Ciampino airport on Wednesday morning, escorted by Italian security forces.

Morabito faces several charges, including transporting drugs to Italy and selling them in Milan, and then trying to import 592 kilograms of cocaine from Brazil in 1992, and 630 kilograms in 1993.
The Italian mafia man had lived for 13 years under a false identity in the luxurious coastal city of Punta del Este in Uruguay, 140 kilometers from the capital, Montevideo.

In 2004, he obtained identity papers from Uruguay by presenting a Brazilian passport in the name of Francisco Capilito, and was eventually exposed after enrolling his daughter in school with her true identity.

Morabito escaped arrest in 1994 in Milan, where he was nicknamed “The King of Cocaine”, and was one of the most prominent officials in the “Africa Nuovo” gang, after his village of Africo in the Italian region of Calabria.

Morabito ranks second in the list of the most wanted gangsters in Italy.

Matteo Messina Denaro is still ranked first in Italy’s list of the most wanted mafia leaders, knowing that he has been a fugitive since 1993.