Fugitive mob boss Rocco Morabito arrested in Brazil two years after escaping prison

Dubbed ‘the king of cocaine’, Morabito has been wanted since 1995 by the Italian justice system

In 2019, Morabito and three other inmates escaped through a hole in the roof of their prison in Uruguay

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Italian crime boss Rocco Morabito. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:45pm, 25 May 2021Updated: 9:46pm, 25 May 2021

Italian mob boss Rocco Morabito has been arrested in northeast Brazil, police said, almost two years after his escape from a prison in Uruguay where he was awaiting extradition to Italy.

Morabito, considered a “capo” or captain of the ‘Ndrangheta group, was captured in the city of Joao Pessoa along with another Italian “outlaw” as a result of a joint investigation with Italy, Brazil’s federal police said in a statement. Morabito is wanted in Italy on charges of drug trafficking.

“There are records of Rocco Morabito’s involvement in … drug trafficking between Brazil and Europe since the 1990s,” the Brazilian police said.

Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court had issued an arrest warrant.

Dubbed “the king of cocaine”, Morabito has been wanted since 1995 by the Italian justice system, which accuses him of illicit association and drug trafficking.

Among other crimes, he is accused of ensuring the transport of drugs into Italy and their sale in Milan, as well as attempting to import 592kg of cocaine from Brazil in 1992 and 630kg a year later.

He was one of Italy’s most wanted men when he was arrested in a Montevideo hotel in September 2017.

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