A boss of Italy’s most dangerous mafia clan, which controls much of Europe’s cocaine trade, has been arrested by Spanish police after spending two years on the run.
On Monday Domenico Paviglianiti, one of the country’s most wanted fugitives, was detained on the streets of Cuatro Caminos, a working-class neighbourhood in Madrid, Spanish officials have said
Paviglianiti was one of several leaders in the ’Ndrangheta, a syndicate based in Calabria in southern Italy and notorious for its drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.
A US diplomat estimated that the organisation’s activities were estimated to have accounted for at least 3 per cent of Italy’s GDP in 2010.
Paviglianiti was carrying fake Portuguese documentation at the time of his arrest as well as nearly €6,000 and six mobile phones.
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Officers hunted him down following a joint operation carried out by Italian and Spanish authorities, the Spanish national police said in a statement.
Dubbed “the boss of the bosses” by Italian media for his role in crimes committed in the 1980s and 1990s, including murder and drug trafficking, Paviglianiti was first arrested in Spain in 1996.
He was extradited three years later to Italy, where he began serving life imprisonment — a sentence typically reserved for top mafia criminals.
But his lawyers argued that Spain’s extradition conditions did not recognise life imprisonment, a legal technicality that allowed him to be freed early after serving more than 20 years.
Italian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him following a ruling by a high court that found he had been erroneously released in 2019.
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Spanish police located part of Paviglianiti’s family in Barcelona, where he lived for several months before moving to Madrid.
Police regularly detain members of Italian mafia in Spain, the main route into Europe for cocaine from Latin America and hashish from north Africa.
The ‘Ndrangheta dates back to the late 18th century, but since the 1950s has spread to other regions in Italy and worldwide.
In April, prosecutors claimed that the clan had moved into Tuscany, buying businesses, dumping toxic waste in streams and using it to lay the foundation for roads through one of Italy’s most verdant regions.
Magistrates who ordered 23 arrests of mafia-linked suspects allege that the mobsters’ Tuscan operation centred on the leather industry around Santa Croce sull’Arno, which employs 6,000 people and produces a third of Italy’s leather.
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Entrepreneurs linked to the Gallace clan, one of the groups making up the ’Ndrangheta, are thought to have taken over the handling of chemical waste in the tanning process, maximising profit by illegally tipping it into rivers and streams.
The syndicate’s biggest money-spinner is cocaine from Latin America.
The name ‘Ndrangheta comes from the Greek ‘andragathía’, which roughly translates to ‘courage’ or ‘loyalty’. Its blood ties mean that few informants are ready to give up its secrets.
