'˜King of Cocaine' arrested in South America after 23 years on run

Italian authorities say a top 'ndrangheta crime syndicate boss, on the run since 1994, has been arrested in Uruguay where he had been living under a false name and with a forged Brazilian passport. Picture: Italian Police via AP

Convicted drug trafficker Rocca Morabito was living in a luxury villa in a Uruguay ­seaside resort under an alias and using a false Brazilian passport, authorities said yesterday.

Morabito, 51, was described as a key figure in Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta mob, one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers.

He played a big role in cocaine trafficking between South America and Milan, a distribution point for the drug to be sold elsewhere, Reggio Calabria chief prosecutor Federico Cafiero de Raho said.

Interior minister Marco Minniti said Morabito had also been convicted of mafia association and must serve 30 years in Italian prison. Italian state radio said Morabito was arrested on Sunday in a Montevideo hotel, but lived in a ­villa with its own swimming pool in Punta del Este.

Police in Uruguay said they had confiscated a 9mm gun, 13 cell phones and $54,000 (about £42,000)in cash from his villa along with a Mercedes car.

Reports said that, until a few months ago, investigators had concentrated their manhunt in Brazil.

But one of his children was recently registered for school in Uruguay with Morabito’s name instead of an alias, shifting the focus of the hunt to that country, Italian reports said.

Police in Uruguay said Morabito has a wife there, who was briefly detained, and who has a Portuguese passport stating Angola as her birthplace.

Prosecutors have said the ’Ndrangheta tries to ensure its cocaine deals with drug cartels go as planned by having its top bosses live in South America so they can be closer to the producers.

The ’Ndrangheta controls much of the world’s cocaine trade and police said that Morabito was behind the smuggling of hundreds of kilogrammes of cocaine from Brazil to Italy.

According to his lawyer, Morabito has been leading “a normal life” since 1994 and has not engaged in any criminal activities since then.

He is being held in Uruguay for falsifying documents but is expected to be extradited to Italy.

Last year, police in Italy found a ’Ndrangheta mafia boss who had been on the run for 18 years hidden in a bunker in the mountains of Calabria.

Italy’s most notorious fugitive remains Matteo Messina Denaro, the alleged head of the Cosa Nostra Mafia in Sicily, who has been on the run for 24 years.

He is alleged to have killed up to 50 people and once boasted: “I filled a cemetery all by myself.”