Not even in his second life as a fugitive had he given up on luxuries. Beach in the morning, in clubs and restaurants in the evening, Rocco Morabito – until his arrest last night the second most wanted fugitive in Italy after Matteo Messina Money – even in Brazil he did nothing to go unnoticed. And obviously it was fully operational again in the great world of drug trafficking, in which “it is an international reference”. Word of the chief prosecutor of DNA, Federico Cafiero de Raho, who satisfied states “this is an important day for Italy and all those who contributed to this result with us with the very important support of the FBI, the Goddess, all the organizations that collaborated to achieve this very important result”.
Because of the continuous cycle factory of coca, Morabito – by blood linked to ancient and powerful families of ‘Ndrangheta and known among his family as “U Tamunga”, a nickname that owes to the off-road vehicle with which he ran around the streets of Locride – was an important gear , perhaps fundamental. Quickly forgetting the years of prison in Uruguay, he was back to work. Perhaps he thought that there, in northern Brazil, someone would always cover and protect him, or that investigators and investigators had given up hunting him after his spectacular escape from Montevideo prison.
‘Ndrangheta, Rocco Morabito arrested in Brazil: he was the number 2 of Italian fugitives after Messina Denaro
by Alessia Candito
For this reason, when the men of the Ros of the carabinieri with the support of the Brazilian Federal Police entered his house – an apartment in a residence in Joao Pessoa in northern Brazil – Morabito seemed almost not to believe it. “He seemed almost astonished,” says the commander of the Ros, Pasquale Angelosanto. At that moment, however, the “Tamunga” was not alone.
With him was another young narcobroker, Vincenzo Pasquino, together with his wife, with whom he seems to have recently also had a son. It is to her, who once challenged him about dangerous deals with bosses, affiliates and brokers, that investigators hear him respond with conviction: “They are people who raised me, I never had a father. I was a goat and I they taught me to read and write. When I stank (I was dying) of hunger you weren’t there to bring me 5 euros to live and buy cigarettes “. Words that are key to understanding – recalls the chief prosecutor of Turin, Anna Maria Loreto – of an umbilical cord that never breaks with the place of origin and with the parent company, down in Calabria. A golden rule, also valid for a thirty year old born and raised in Turin, but who has always “breathed” the air of a clan.
Born an apprentice at the court of another ‘Ndrangheta narcobroker, Nicola Assisi, when his mentor was arrested in Brazil with his son in July 2019, he took his place for investigators. After all, despite having been in hiding for some time, Pasquino was still in contact with them. The investigators had guessed this and confirmed that passport with his photo found among dozens of false documents in the den of the two narcobrokers. Younger than Morabito, but already with a bridgehead role between Italy, Spain and Colombian clans, in recent months Pasquino has seemed to waver. “I have everything wrong and I admit that I have sold on many occasions I smoke. I do not want to shirk my responsibilities and my arrest, but where I am I am afraid of prisons. Many people here are dying” wrote a few months ago in a letter that his defender filed in the courtroom in Turin.
A strange letter, according to rumors franked in Italy and to which investigative sources would give very little weight and credit, after which Pasquino returned to sink. It certainly did not serve to divert the efforts and attention that the Turin Carabinieri Command and the Investigative Unit had been dedicating for some time to his search and capture, first of all beating the Brazilian track. It is from there that the “platioti” of Turin have always managed most of the drug trafficking and it is there that the Assisi brothers have been identified one after the other. For this reason, it was suspected only there that Pasquino could have continued to administer the trafficking received as a dowry.
Correct intuition, but at the moment little or nothing filters out on his business and his relationships. Likewise, it is not known what Morabito did in his company. “It was certainly not a convivial meeting” commented one of the magistrates who followed the investigation without getting anything more out of it. Investigations on the network of the two narcobrokers are still ongoing, as well as on the business they were managing. The Brazilian Policia Federal has let slip an indiscretion on consolidated relations between the brokers of ‘Ndrangheta and Primeiro Comando da Capital, the Brazilian “mafia” born in the suburbs and raised in prisons both at home and in nearby Uruguay, which for some years it would have made the leap in quality thanks to drug trafficking. But in Italy no one confirms, just as few details filter on the investigative stream or the possible error that would have led to the identification of the two coca brokers.
“The activity – explains the chief prosecutor Giovanni Bombardieri, who together with the deputy Giuseppe Lombardo followed the “hunt” for Morabito – it lasted 2 years, it was very intense, with moments of stasis. Everything was unlocked last Wednesday when we had perception of movements towards South America “. A trace that crossed with the one that the carabinieri and the Turin prosecutor who tracked Pasquino had been following for some time.” We had clues – says Bombardieri – that the roads of Morabito and Pasquino crossed in Brazil. “And the international investigative collaboration machine was immediately unlocked. The blitz was prepared quickly.
Once identified, the two were followed during their long afternoon stroll through the streets of the capital. Then, as soon as we got home, the arrest operation started immediately. Nobody tried to react or deny their identity, both without too many protests were handcuffed and taken away. “Inside the house was found documentation that seems to be of interest, telephone cards and mobile phones and documents that will be analyzed in the next few hours” says Bombardieri.
In the evening, the two narcobrokers will be transferred to Brasilia, for formal arrest and the initiation of extradition procedures. Waiting for Pasquino, there is the Cerberus trial, the first to see him accused of drug trafficking. Morabito, on the other hand, has a long career and a collection of convictions behind him: one at 30 years remedied in Sicily, one at 22 in Milan, another at 10 in Reggio Calabria. The race of the elusive Tamunga, after an over twenty years in hiding, an escape and a new escape, now seems to have come to an end.
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