{{An Italian mafia capo alleged to be the biggest cocaine trafficker in the world will be deported to Italy on Saturday, a day after being arrested in a Colombian shopping mall, prosecutors said.}}<\/p>\n
Roberto Pannunzi was detained in Bogota with a fake Venezuelan identity card in a joint operation by Colombian police together with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the biggest cocaine importer in the world,\u201d said Nicola Gratteri, deputy chief prosecutor in Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the only one who can organise purchases and sales of cocaine shipments of 3,000 kilos (6,600 pounds) and up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPannunzi is the only one who can sell both to the \u2018Ndrangheta and to Cosa Nostra. He is definitely the most powerful drug broker in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Ndrangheta is based in Calabria and is a major player in international drug trafficking. The Sicilian mafia is known as Cosa Nostra.<\/p>\n
Gratteri said Pannunzi was being deported since \u201can extradition order would have taken several months\u201d.<\/p>\n
He is expected to land at Rome\u2019s Fiumicino airport later on Saturday.<\/p>\n
In April, Colombia captured another suspected top mafioso, Domenico Trimboli, alleged to be a lynchpin between the Medellin drug cartel and the \u2018Ndrangheta.<\/p>\n
Pannunzi had escaped from a Rome clinic where he was being held under house arrest in 2010 \u2014 repeating an earlier escape in the same way in 1999.<\/p>\n
He was previously been detained in Colombia in 1994, when he reportedly offered the arresting officers a million dollars in cash to walk away.<\/p>\n
Gratteri said that during Friday\u2019s arrest, Pannunzi had told the police he was ill but he said he hoped the alleged trafficker would not be granted house arrest in a hospital in Italy again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that he is not given house arrest a third time because he could attempt a third escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exhausting having to go around the world to find him every time he escapes,\u201d Gratteri said.<\/p>\n
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{{An Italian mafia capo alleged to be the biggest cocaine trafficker in the world will be deported to Italy on Saturday, a day after being arrested in a Colombian shopping mall, prosecutors said.}} Roberto Pannunzi was detained in Bogota with a fake Venezuelan identity card in a joint operation by Colombian police together with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8926"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8926"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}