Italy has requested the extradition
from Brazil of Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia boss Rocco Morabito,
recently arrested there after years on the run, Justice Minister
Marta Cartabia told the parliamentary anti-mafia commission
Thursday.
Drug trafficker Morabito, 54, had been on the run since 1994
when he was arrested in Uruguay in 2017, only to escape in 2019
and be re-arrested in Brazil last month.
He was Italy's second most wanted mafia fugitive after elusive
Cosa Nostra superboss Matteo Messina Denaro.
Morabito was arrested along with another fugitive drug
trafficker, Vincenzo Pasquino, on May 25.
The operation that led to their arrest involved the Carabinieri
police, the FBI, the USA's DEA and the Brazilian police.
Morabito was arrested in a house at Joao Pessoa after being
followed through the streets of the capital of the Brazilian
state of Paraiba.
'Ndrangheta controls the European cocaine trade and is Italy's
richest and most powerful mafia, having overtaken Cosa Nostra.
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