Uruguayan officials have launched a manhunt for an Italian organized crime boss known as the Cocaine King of Milan who escaped on Sunday from a detention center where he was awaiting extradition to Italy, the Uruguayan Ministry of Interior said in a statement.
Rocco Morabito and three other inmates made a brazen escape from the prison in Montevideo, climbing through a hole in the roof of the building. Reports from ministry officials indicated that the men eventually broke into a neighboring property, robbed the owner, then fled.
But El Observador reports that one of the four men, a Brazilian also waiting to be extradited to his home country, actually avoided the hassle of the daring jailbreak by simply walking through a side door of the building "without anyone stopping him."
Morabito, who is believed to be the son of another famed mobster with the same name, was one of the 10 most wanted criminals in the world in 2017 as the leader of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta — one of Italy's most powerful organized crime groups.
A 2013 Europol report found the 'Ndrangheta "now recognised as a major threat not only in Italy but also in many other countries where it operates, including Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, US, Colombia and Australia."
The drug kingpin was sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison in Italy. Authorities have been chasing him since he was caught trying to import nearly a ton of cocaine into the country from Brazil in 1994.
Morabito had been living on the run for more than two decades under a false identity but was eventually captured after trying to enroll his daughter in a school using his real name.
El Observadorreported the director of prisons has resigned following Sunday's escape.
According to the newspaper, officials were warned a year ago about an escape plan hatched by Morabito bearing an eerie resemblance to the weekend's events. The only major difference between the 2018 plan and what happened around midnight Sunday is that in the earlier version Morabito was set to escape from the sixth floor of the penitentiary onto the roof of a supermarket — not a neighboring apartment building.
Italy's minister of the interior, Matteo Salvini, was furious over the breakout.
"I make two commitments. First: to shed light on the methods of evasion, asking for immediate explanations from the Montevideo government. Second: continue to hunt down Morabito, wherever he is, to throw him in jail as he deserves," Salvini wrote on Twitter.
Interpol has issued a red notice — its highest-priority international arrest warrant — for all four escapees.
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