Mafia boss with SA links arrested

[dArKeR]

By Douglas Carew

A Sicilian Mafia boss suspected of cocaine trafficking in South Africa has been arrested in South America and extradited to Italy.

Italian police have been hunting Vito Bigione, 52, for nine years in Africa and South America, on suspicion of him being a major Mafia drugs smuggler. He is on Italy's "30 most dangerous criminals" list.

"Bigione was a logistics point man for the various criminal needs of the Cosa Nostra," the Italian police said.

The alleged Mafia boss was arrested in VENEZUELA last week. He had close links to southern Africa and previously successfully fought extradition from Namibia.

http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=vn20040606103810209C765494&set_id=1

VENEZUELA, hmmmm!

[dmr]

1. Yea, apparently he was living there

but exporting out of Brazil. Busy guy.

-snip-
Before moving to Venezuela, Bigione had lived in Namibia from 1998, where his business interests included an upmarket seaside restaurant, La Marina, which consisted of four luxury passenger train coaches.

In 2000, The Namibian newspaper reported that Bigione had been arrested in Walvis Bay after Italian police requested his extradition to Italy, where he was to stand trial in Sicily on charges of smuggling more than 2 000kg of cocaine by sea from Brazil to Italy and smuggling 5 000kg of hashish from Morocco to Italy.
-snip-