Italian mafia boss arrested after two decades on the run
A convicted killer who was one of Italy’s most wanted mafia bosses was arrested on Sunday in an operation hailed by prosecutors as a historic breakthrough in the fight against organised crime.
Ernesto Fazzalari, 46, a fugitive for 20 years, was captured in the early hours of the morning in an apartment in a remote part of the southern region of Calabria, home to the notorious ‘Ndrangheta network of criminal clans.
He thought he was protected on his own turf, that he would be warned if he was in danger. But no alarm came.
Fazzalari was a leading figure in ‘Ndrangheta, now considered the most powerful of Italy’s crime syndicates.
He was the second most-wanted mafia fugitive after “superboss” Matteo Messina Denaro, a suspected leader of the Sicilian mafia, Cosa Nostra.
On the run since 1996, Fazzalari was convicted in absentia in 1999 of mafia association, kidnapping, illegal possession of weapons and a double homicide linked to a bloody 1989-91 feud which left 32 people dead in his home town of Taurianova.
Federico Cafiero De Raho, Calabria’s chief anti-mafia prosecutor, said it was hugely significant that Fazzalari had been captured on home turf.