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One of Italy’s most wanted captured in deadly shootout in Spain

Italian authorities are seeking to extradite a man suspected of murdering two people in northern Italy earlier this year after he was captured in a shootout in Spain.

Published: 15 December 2017 15:18 CET
One of Italy's most wanted captured in deadly shootout in Spain
Officers at the scene in the aftermath of the shooting. Photo: Guardia Civil/Twitter

Igor Vaclavic, a Serbian national who also goes by the name Norbert Feher, has been one of Italy’s most wanted since he allegedly shot dead two men in April.

He was arrested in eastern Spain early on Friday morning after a gun battle that killed three people, two of them police officers.

Prosecutors in Bologna, where Vaclavic allegedly killed his first victim, said that Italy would file for extradition – though Spain is also likely to want to try him for the three killings there.

Vaclavic, dubbed “Igor the Russian” and “Rambo” by the Italian press, evaded a massive manhunt across northern Italy, reportedly surviving by scavenging as he hid out in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna.

He is wanted for the murders of Davide Fabbri, a barman killed in an attempted robbery at his bar near Bologna on April 1st, and Valerio Verri, a park ranger shot as he approached the suspect in woodland near Ferrara a week later. A police officer was also shot, but survived.

Vaclavic, said to be a former soldier, faces additional charges of robbery and sexual assault in Serbia.

He is said to have been heavily armed when Spanish police arrested him in the town of Cantavieja, some 12 hours after he allegedly shot dead two civil guards and a civilian at an isolated farmhouse.

This photo claims to show Vaclavic shortly after his arrest.

The shooting “demonstrates not only the dangerous of the subject but also the absence of scruples”, said Bologna’s chief prosector, Giuseppe Amato.

Italy’s Interior Minister Marco Minniti, who said that Italian and Spanish authorities had been working together to locate Vaclavic for some time, thanked the police in Spain and offered his condolences to the victims in both countries.

Responding to criticism that Italy failed to capture Vaclavic, Minnitti said that the Italian investigation may have seemed slow at times, but came through in the end.  

Vaclaviv was identified by comparing his fingerprints with records in Italy, the Italian state police said.

“I hope that Igor serves his time and that justice can finally be done,” commented Fabbri's widow, Maria Sirica, “even if it doesn't change the tragedy for me.”

CRIME

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel’s crystal meth

Spanish police said Thursday they had seized 1,800 kilos of crystal meth that Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country's "biggest-ever seizure" of the narcotic.

Published: 16 May 2024 17:07 CEST
Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel's crystal meth

Police arrested five people during the raid in the eastern Alicante province, one of them a Mexican running the cartel’s Spanish operation, a statement said.

“This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe,” Antonio Martinez Duarte, head of the police’s drug trafficking and organised crime unit, told reporters.

“Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,” he added.

READ ALSO: What are the penalties for drug possession in Spain?

He did not give his name but indicated the suspect was responsible for receiving the narcotics in Spain then distributing them within Europe.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most violent criminal groups whose influence remains strong despite the arrest of its founder Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and his son.

Both have been extradited to and jailed in the United States.

During the operation, police also detained three Spaniards and a Romanian, seizing five cars, documents, a weapon and cash.

But police believe it was a one-off trafficking operation and that “Mexican organisations are not permanently based” in Spain, Martinez Duarte said.

“These organisations send a trusted person who carries out the operation in line with their interests” and once that is over, he goes back home, he explained.

The seized narcotics had been due to be shipped to central Europe.

Although Spain is one of the main drug gateways to Europe, seizures of synthetic narcotics are uncommon as most traffickers usually deal in cannabis and cocaine.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain’s Europe’s cocaine gateway?

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