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SPAIN

Italian mobster lived as fugitive on Costa del Sol

Police have arrested a member of an Italian criminal gang who spent years living along Spain's Costa del Sol, frequenting luxury restaurants and keeping tabs on transnational drug trafficking.

Published: 10 April 2015 13:21 CEST
Italian mobster lived as fugitive on Costa del Sol
Carlo Leone was arrested in San Pedro de Alcántara on Thursday. Photo: Guardia Civil

Carlo Leone was arrested in San Pedro de Alcántara on Thursday, six years after he escaped an arrest warrant in Italy’s Calabria region.

The 55-year-old was located in the Costa del Sol in February, as part of a joint investigation between Italian authorities and the Spanish Civil Guard.

Leone is a member of Naples’ Elia clan and was involved in trafficking drugs between South America, Spain and Italy.

While living as a fugitive he continued to maintain his contacts in the international drug trade, focusing on cocaine and hashish, police said on Friday.

While criminal convictions hung over Leone in Italy, he whiled away his years on the run at some of the Costa del Sol’s top restaurants.

His penchant for the Spanish luxury life, however, helped police investigators, who discovered he could frequently be found in a bar-restaurant in San Pedro de Alcántara.

Leone was arrested while walking alone in the town and jailed by police, while authorities arrange his extradition to Italy.  

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ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Published: 23 May 2021 14:15 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 16:46 CEST
German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

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