Colombian authorities said Saturday they had scored a major coup with the arrest of an Italian drug lord associated with the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, according to dpa. In a statement, the Colombian Interior Ministry described Roberto Pannunzi as "the Italian Pablo Escobar," and said he was the head of a ring that was smuggling tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe. "There were four international arrest warrants for drug smuggling and criminal association with the mafia for this international drug lord. Italy had issued a red notice alert for him," the ministry said. Italian media said Pannunzi had been on the run since 2010, when he escaped from a clinic in Rome where he had been taken for a heart condition. He was arrested by special forces in Bogota, where police found him with false documents. "I think he was the biggest supplier of drugs from Colombia," Federico Cafiero de Raho, a prosecutor from Reggio Calabria, told the Italian news agency Adnkronos, adding that Italian authorities contributed to the arrest of Pannunzi.
