DUBAI — Dubai authorities on Wednesday confirmed they
have arrested one of Italy's most wanted international drug barons and his
right-hand man, after years on the run.
اضافة اعلان
Raffaele Imperiale, considered to be one of Italy's most
dangerous fugitives, was a top operative from the Naples organized crime world.
In 2016 he was believed to have fled to the Gulf emirate.
A statement on Wednesday said Dubai police had arrested
Imperiale.
"It also arrested Imperiale's right-hand man Raffaele
Mauriello, who is responsible for plotting and executing murders and
assassinations using unlicensed firearms," the statement added.
Dubai police said Imperiale had been living under a false
identity in the of name Antonio Rocco, and had used multiple cars to conceal
his movements.
"Imperiale chose to live in an isolated home with an
overlooking spot to monitor those who approach him," the statement cited
Jamal Salem Al Jallaf, director of the Criminal Investigation Department, as
saying.
"He intentionally had avoided registering a precise
address to mislead authorities."
Police in Naples had said Imperiale was arrested on August 4
in Dubai in coordination with Interpol and Europol.
Jallaf said police raided Imperiale's house, and also seized
large sums of cash, luxury watches and paintings.
Extradition proceedings were under way, he added.
Imperiale — part of the Amato-Pagana clan within Naples'
Camorra organised crime syndicate — left Italy for Amsterdam in the 1990s to
manage a coffee shop, and began allying himself with Dutch traffickers,
according to Italian daily La Repubblica.
After first dealing in ecstasy tablets, he set his sights on
the more lucrative cocaine trade, moving tons of
drugs into the Netherlands for
the European market with the help of South American traffickers.
At the same time he operated restaurants and investment
companies, the paper said.
In 2016, Italian police found two Van Gogh paintings that
had been stolen from Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum 14 years earlier inside a home
outside Naples belonging to Imperiale.
The artworks — "View of the Sea at Scheveningen"
and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen" — were
snatched in a daring heist.
Italian police said a close cohort of Imperiale, Vincenzo
Aprea — a well-known Camorra boss now in prison — had been able to buy the
paintings on the black market using drug money.
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