Does the Italian mafia benefit from the pandemic?
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(CNN) --
Rocco Morabito, one of Italy's most wanted fugitives and a convicted drug lord for the Italian mafia, arrived in Rome Wednesday morning after being extradited from Brazil, Italian police said.
Morabito, 56, was arrested by Brazilian police on May 25 this year during a joint operation by Italian police, Interpol, and US DEA and FBI agencies, Rome police said in a statement.
The statement says that Morabito is "one of the main intermediaries in the international drug market."
He was convicted of drug-related offenses by an Italian court two decades ago in absentia and will serve 30 years in prison.
The Italian Rocco Morabito, wanted for drug trafficking and mafia activities, arrives in Brasilia on May 25, 2021 escorted by federal police and Interpol agents after being arrested yesterday in Joao Pessoa, in the state of Paraiba, northeast Brazil.
Italian prosecutors and police on Tuesday applauded the capture in Brazil of a top mob boss who has evaded justice in Italy for nearly 30 years.
(Photo by EVARISTO SA/AFP) (Photo by EVARISTO SA/AFP via Getty Images)
Morabito was also placed on the Italian Interior Ministry's list of "maximum danger" fugitives.
Member of the Calabrian mafia escapes from a prison in Uruguay
After being a fugitive for 23 years, he was arrested in Uruguay in September 2017 by carabineros.
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On June 24, 2019, while awaiting extradition to Italy, he managed to escape from a prison in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo.
He remained in hiding until May 2021 when the police, through "complex international investigations, which also involved tracking telematic leads," found him in the Brazilian city of Joao Pessoa, the statement added.
The chief prosecutor of the city of Reggio Calabria, in southern Italy, and the anti-mafia district prosecutor expressed in a joint statement "great satisfaction" after the extradition.
"Finally today, with his return to Italy, Rocco Morabito has been brought before the justice of his country, where he will serve the long sentence to which he was sentenced," they both said in the statement.
