MEXICO CITY – Mexican forces have detained a high-level member of the Italian mafia in Mexico wanted for drug trafficking, the federal attorney general said on Friday.
Giulio Perrone, 64, who is on Italy’s most wanted list, was arrested in Ciudad Madero, in the state of Tamaulipas, which is on the U.S.-Mexico border and is one of the country’s most violent areas, the attorney general (PGR) said in a statement.
Perrone was a fugitive from Italy for more than a decade after a court in Naples sentenced him to nearly 21 years in prison, the PGR said. He was turned over to Italian authorities, the PGR said.
“There were some coordinated operations between Mexican traffickers and groups in the Italian mafia,” said Antonio Mazzitelli, the U.N. representative on drugs and crime in Mexico. “… It is normal in the criminal world for criminal organizations to collaborate on trafficking.”
LIZBETH DIAZ
