Vincenzo La Porta, a 60-year-old suspected mafioso, was arrested after 11 years on the run as he celebrated a recent Napoli soccer victory. After being tracked to the Greek island of Corfu, where he was arrested while riding a motor scooter, La Porta was finally apprehended after being named among Italy’s top 100 most dangerous fugitives.
La Porta is suspected of having ties to the criminal organization known as the Camorra, which is centered in Naples. He has been sentenced to 14 years and 4 months in prison and will be extradited from Greece to Italy to do his time there. He has a new family and a number of health problems, so he claims he should stay in Greece. In order to provide for his family, he had been working as a waiter.
The seizure of La Porta follows a string of recent arrests made by Italian authorities, including that of Pasquale Bonavota, a highly dangerous man on the run for five years, and that of Edgardo Greco, a convicted killer on the run for 16 years. They were just recently apprehended. After being on the run for 28 years, Rocco Morabito, Italy’s second most wanted fugitive, was apprehended in Brazil.
In January of 2023, after being on the run for 30 years, mafia lord Matteo Messina Denaro was finally apprehended. The arrest of Denaros effectively ended the “Cosa Nostra” Sicilian crime family seen in “The Godfather” films.
Denaro, Italy’s most wanted criminal, was apprehended outside a hospital. Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, called it a “great victory.” As the last remaining top Cosa Nostra boss, Denaro may have retained some influence within his organization.
The “World’s Most Wanted” series on Netflix also focused on Denaro. The truth is, it’s far more difficult to vanish in today’s society. Facial recognition technology and the exponential increase in surveillance over the past three decades have made it far more difficult to vanish into the background of a large gathering of people.
