Spanish police on Monday said they had arrested three “extremely dangerous” suspected mafia members wanted in Italy for crimes including attempted murder, weapons trafficking and money laundering.
A police statement said the suspects were “one of the heads of a dangerous family clan” of the Neapolitan Camorra, his son, and his son-in-law, without naming the three.
They were recently detained in the southern Spanish coastal town of Marbella, where many international criminal gang members have settled in recent years. Police posted video on social media, showing officers separately escorting the three suspects who appeared to be in handcuffs.
The investigation began when Spanish police found out that the clan’s boss, who is wanted for money laundering, had fled to Spain from Italy.
He was tracked down to a house in Marbella rigged with “extensive security features” which he nearly never left, according to the statement.
Police first arrested the son, who faces a 30-year prison sentence and is accused of attempted murder and weapons trafficking, when he left the house to go into the city center.
Police said that before he was arrested, the son made several evasive maneuvers to try to avoid being detected by police.
Then on Sunday police captured the crime boss and his son-in-law as they were leaving the fortified home, the statement added.
The latter faces a 20-year sentence on accusations of drug trafficking and tobacco smuggling.
“Within the Neapolitan Camorra, those arrested are considered ‘men of honor’ because they abide by a strict code of conduct,” police said in a news release.
The operation was carried out with the help of the Italian police.
Last October, Italian police announced the arrest in Colombia of Luigi Belvedere, a fugitive accused of being the intermediary between the Latin American country’s drug cartels and the Neapolitan mafia. In announcing his arrest, Italian police released a photo of Belvedere visiting the grave of Pablo Escobar, the founder and boss of the Medellin cartel, who was killed by police in 1993.