Fugitive and wanted since 2016, arrested in Spain, 45-year-old from Salento

Posted on June 14, 2022

Yesterday evening, June 13, he has been arrested, in the town of Benalmadena, Spain, Vincenzo Amato, 45, fugitive since 2016, included in the list of the 100 most dangerous fugitives. The capture came at the end of a complex investigation activity, coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Lecce and carried out by the Central Anti-Crime Directorate of the Department of Public Security, as part of the commitment to search and capture the fugitives, through the use of investigators of the Service Operations Center and the Flying Squad of Lecce, as well as the Service for International Police Cooperation, in collaboration with the UDYCO Central of the Spanish Police. Amato, who must serve a final sentence of 19 years and 5 months for criminal association aimed at drug trafficking, escaped capture in March 2016. Initially taking refuge in Greece, the fugitive subsequently went into hiding in the Iberian peninsula, in Andalusia. The painstaking activity carried out by the men of the State Police has allowed, day after day, to restrict the search area to the province of Malaga where the home of a woman who appeared to have a sentimental relationship with Amato was identified in the municipality of Benalmadena.

Captured fugitive, now extradition

Through the FAST Italia Unit (Fugitive Active Search Team) of International Police Cooperation Service Thus, in the first months of the year, the collaboration with the Spanish FAST Team of the UDYCO Central of the Iberian Police, a unit specialized in the capture of fugitives, was started, which in the last month, in close contact with the Italian Police, stalked at the house identified in Benalmadena (Malaga), until the epilogue of June 13, when the wanted man was stopped while he was returning to the aforementioned residence. Amato Vincenzo is also the recipient of a precautionary measure in prison which involved about 30 subjects to be considered, in the context of an investigation carried out by the Milan Mobile Squad and coordinated by the DDA of the Lombard capital, responsible for an international trafficking in drugs of the cocaine type, carried out last May. The procedures for extradition of the arrested person are underway.