A fugitive boss of one of Italy’s most violent mafia has been captured in France, the governments of both countries said on Friday (Feb 2). Marco Raduano was detained on the French island of Corsica, a report by the news agency AFP said. Raduano is on Europol’s list of Europe’s most wanted criminals. Italian authorities on Friday also announced the detention of Raduano’s close aide Gianluigi Troiano, who was picked up near Granada in southern Spain.
“The carabinieri’s (police’s) capture abroad of two dangerous fugitives, Marco Raduano and his right-hand man Gianluigi Troiano represents another major blow to organised crime,” Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said, AFP reported.
A dramatic escape from prison in 2023
In Feb 2023, Raduano, 40, escaped from a heavily secured prison in Nuoro, Sardinia where he had been serving a 24-year sentence for membership in a criminal organisation, drug trafficking and other crimes. He used bedsheets to scale down the walls of the prison.
He was jailed for being the boss of the rural Gargano clan operating within a young and little-known organised crime syndicate in Foggia, in the southern Italian region of Puglia, known as the Fourth Mafia, AFP reported.
According to Europol, the 40-year-old mafia boss was at the top of his criminal organisation, “with the role of promoter, organiser and ruthless killer of the group dedicated to the perpetration of murders, drug trafficking and management of the extortion racket”.
Raduano arrested while dining in restaurant
Speaking to AFP, a source close to the matter said that Raduano was arrested on Thursday evening in Corsica’s Aleria while he was dining in a restaurant with a young woman. The mafia boss had been living there “quite frugally” on false papers, using a falsely registered stolen vehicle, the source said. Raduano did not resist his arrest.
Meanwhile, Troiano escaped from house arrest not far from Foggia in Sept 2021, the Italian police said. With his arrest, Troiano will now have to serve a sentence of nine years and two months in prison.
AFP reported that Raduano is also accused of the murder of two men in Foggia in separate incidents in 2017 — with Troiano also implicated in the latter.
(With inputs from agencies)
