Two of Italy’s most unsafe mafia fugitives were arrested by police in a secret bunker packed with automatic weapons on Friday after being on the run for more than a decade.
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Giuseppe Ferraro, 47, called “extremely unsafe”, was responsible for several murders and had been on the run for 18 years, according to Agence-France Press.
Giuseppe Ferraro and Giuseppe Crea’s hideout was discovered in the province of Reggio Calabria.
The pair were both wanted for crimes committed as part of the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate, Europe’s biggest cocaine broker which has eclipsed its Sicilian cousin Cosa Nostra and holds its native Calabria in a vice-like grip. Tomatoes, salad and what looked like a plate heaped with ricotta were on the counter. The bunker had a dirt floor, electricity, and a tv set.
Though they were, in prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho’s words, “living like animals” and “cut off from society”, they were still able to exert control over their mafia underlings, according to the BBC.
Among those victims was a mobster whose body was fed to pigs and a nine-year-old boy who was accidentally shot when his grandfather’s vehicle was mistakenly fired on, daily Corriere della Sera reported.
“Today is another great day for the country, because today justice once again has won, and done so impressively”, Italy’s Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said in a statement.
Police said they eventually found the bunker by using hidden cameras to follow the movements of numerous associates of the wanted men.
Police found detonators and were searching the 20 square-metre (215 square-foot) space for explosives, investigators said.
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Reports of corruption by the mafia in Calabria, the power of the ‘Ndrangheta, the tunnels dug to hide leaders, and the arrest in an obscure, camouflaged bunker mirror the recent escapades of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, head of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel.
