Gregg Zoroya

USA TODAY Opinion

Two dangerous mobsters on the run for a decade or more were found Friday "living like animals" in a mountain bunker in southern Italy, according to Italian authorities.

Police arrested the pair, who were identified as high-ranking members of the 'Ndrangheta organized crime group responsible for operating a major European cocaine syndicate.

Giuseppe Ferraro, 47, called "extremely dangerous," was responsible for several murders and had been on the run for 18 years, according to Agence-France Press. The other mobster — Guiseppe Crea, 37 — had been on the run since 2006 for extortion and other mafia-related crimes, AFP reported.

The two men were discovered asleep in a bunker stocked with weapons in the mountains above Reggio Calabria near the town of Maropati.

"They were living like animals, a cold life cut off from society," Italian prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho told reporters, according to AFP.

Rosy Bindi, head of the parliamentary anti-mafia commission, said both men were still exerting control over mafia activities, AFP reported. Authorities have been closing in on the fugitives for the past year after cracking down on their gangland network and on those who were helping the men survive in the mountains, according to AFP.