Rocco Morabito and three other prisoners let themselves down by rope to an adjacent farm, where they robbed the owner

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

An Italian mafia boss known as the “cocaine king of Milan” has escaped from prison in Uruguay where he was awaiting extradition to Italy, the South American country’s interior ministry has announced.

Rocco Morabito, 53, leader of Italy’s most powerful organised crime group – the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta – fled the prison in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, through a hole in the roof of the building.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rocco Morabito. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Three other prisoners awaiting extradition to Brazil and Argentina – including one on charges of homicide – escaped with Morabito. The four men let themselves down by rope into an adjacent home, where they robbed the owner, the ministry added.

Morabito, who had been on the run for 23 years, was arrested in September 2017 at a luxury hotel in Montevideo, along with his wife, reportedly an Angolan national.

The mobster, who was sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison in Italy, had been sought by police since 1994 after attempting to import almost a tonne of cocaine, worth 13bn lire ($7.64m), into Italy from Brazil.

'Cocaine king of Milan' arrested in Uruguay after 23 years on the run Read more

“It is unacceptable that a criminal like Morabito managed to escape from a prison in Uruguay while he was waiting to be extradited to Italy,” said Matteo Salvini, the Italian interior minister.

“I will ask for immediate explanations from the Montevideo government and we will continue to hunt down Morabito, wherever he is.”

Morabito, who obtained Uruguayan papers after presenting a false Brazilian passport in the name of Francisco Capeletto, is thought to have arrived in Uruguay in 2002, where he bought a luxurious villa in the southern coastal resort of Punta del Este.

A search of his properties uncovered 13 mobile phones, 12 bank cards, two cars, 150 passport-sized photos of him in various disguises plus a Portuguese passport, a quantity of jewels, about $50,000 (£38,500) in cash and a 9mm pistol.

“It’s bad news,’’ said Nicola Gratteri, the anti-mafia chief prosecutor in the Calabrian city of Catanzaro. “Things like this can surely happen everywhere. The problem is that this is another side-effect of the long waiting times for the extraditions. It’s time for politicians to discuss new agreements with the South American countries, like the ones the authorities struck with Colombia a few years ago [that mean that] criminals could now be extradited within 48 hours.’’

Morabito has spent nearly two and a half years in jail awaiting the formal extradition request by Italy. He had tried in various ways to evade extradition to Italy and had often insulted the judge at a recent hearing to try to get the proceedings suspended, Ansa reported.