Roberto Pannunzi (; born 1948), also known as ''Bebè'' (Baby), is an Italian criminal from

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

linked to the

'Ndrangheta The 'Ndrangheta (, , ) is a prominent Italian Mafia-type organized crime syndicate and secret society, criminal society based in the peninsular and mountainous region of Calabria and dating back to the late 18th century. It is considered one of ...

, a Mafia-type organisation in

Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

. He is one of the top

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...

brokers for the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily a ...

and the

with the Colombian cocaine cartels.Little-known mafia is cocaine 'king'
Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2007 He has been described as "Europe's most wanted drugs trafficker",Italian 'top mafia boss' caught in Colombia
BBC News, 6 July 2013 and the "biggest cocaine trafficker in the world", the equivalent of

Pablo Escobar Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (; ; 1 December 19492 December 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed "the king of cocaine", Escobar is the wealthiest criminal in h ...

, the head of the Colombian

Medellín Cartel The Medellín Cartel ( es, Cartel de Medellín) was a powerful and highly organized Colombian drug cartel and terrorist organization originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia that was founded and led by Pablo Escobar. It is often considered ...

.Legendary cocaine trafficker Roberto Pannunzi deported to Italy
Herald Sun, 6 July 2013Italy's most wanted drug trafficker arrested in Colombia
Reuters, 6 July 2013 According to the United States

Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within th ...

(DEA), the drug trafficking activities of Pannunzi have been documented for over 30 years.International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2005
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, March 2005

Early years

Pannunzi was born in Rome in 1948. His father came from Rome but his mother from Calabria, kindred with the Macrì 'Ndrangheta clan from

Siderno Siderno ( scn, label= Calabrian, Sidernu or ; ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy, about 3 kilometres from Locri. Some notable people from Siderno are Marco stalteri, Patrizia lunch s ...

in Calabria.Forgione,
Mafia export
', p. 51-58Uno degli affari di Cosa Nostra e 'Ndrangheta insieme
ADUC, May 30, 2003 He is a former employee of

Alitalia Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana Società per azioni, S.p.A., operating as Alitalia (), was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, Metropolitan City of ...

. As a boy, he moved to Canada with his family. In

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

he became a pupil of

Antonio Macrì Antonio Macrì (; – January 20, 1975), popularly known as ("Unca Tony"), was a historical and charismatic boss of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. He was born in Siderno on the Ionian coast of Calabri ...

, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta boss from Siderno.Roberto Pannunzi: il Copernico della cocaina
by

Roberto Saviano Roberto Saviano (; born 22 September 1979) is an Italian writer, essayist, journalist, and screenwriter. In his writings, including articles and his book '' Gomorrah'', he uses literature and investigative reporting to tell of the economic reali ...

, La Repubblica, July 7, 2013Bebè, il boss dei due mondi re della coca che veste firmato
Corriere della Sera, July 7, 2013 While in Toronto he met

Salvatore Miceli Salvatore Miceli (; born April 12, 1946, in Salemi) is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "Most wanted list" of the Italian Ministry of the Interior from 2001 until his arrest in Venezuela in June 2009. Some Mafia turncoats (pentiti) ...

, a Sicilian mafioso. They became close friends and Pannunzi became the godfather of Miceli's first born. The relation between the Calabrian and the Sicilian mafioso also was very useful for drug trafficking because of their connection in both criminal organisations.

Heroin trafficker

Back in Rome, he ran an upmarket fashion boutique "Il Papavero" ("The

Poppy A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, ''Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug opi ...

") as a cover in the 1980s when he was making his way in the heroin business.Narcos alla milanese
Corriere della Sera, October 16, 1993
AFP, July 6, 2013 In the late 1970s and 1980s he was involved in heroin trafficking with the Sicilian Mafiosi

Gaetano Badalamenti Gaetano Badalamenti (; 14 September 1923 – 29 April 2004) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. ''Don Tano'' Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s. In 198 ...

and

Gerlando Alberti Gerlando Alberti (; September 18, 1927 – February 1, 2012), nicknamed ("the imperturbable one"), Lodato, ''Quindici anni di mafia'', pp. 47-50 was a member of the Sicilian Mafia.Cooperation Between Organized Crime Groups Around The World
by Alison Jamieson, Jahrbuch für internationale Sicherheitspolitik 1999, December 1999 He put them in contact with Corsican gangsters from

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

and convinced the chemist

André Bousquet André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation o ...

an old hand from the

French Connection The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada, sometimes through Cuba. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and ...

days, to set up a heroin-refining lab on Sicily. He also traded heroin to the U.S. on behalf of the Mafia bosses from Palermo

Stefano Bontade Stefano Bontade (23 April 1939 – 23 April 1981) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. His actual surname was Bontate. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the ''Principe di Villagrazia'' (Prin ...

and

Salvatore Inzerillo Salvatore Inzerillo (; 20 August 1944 – 11 May 1981) was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Totuccio (a diminutive for Salvatore). He rose to be a powerful boss of Palermo's Passo di Rigano family. A prolific heroin trafficke ...

. In 1989, Pannunzi was involved in setting up a heroin lab near

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...

in northern Italy together with the Barbaro and Sergi 'Ndrangheta clans from

Platì Platì (; scn, label=Central-Southern Calabrian, Calabrian, Pratì) is a town and ''comune'' (municipality) in the province of Reggio Calabria, in Calabria, southern Italy. It rises above sea level on the slope of the Aspromonte mountains and is ...

. The lab was discovered on May 21, 1990 in a farmhouse

Valsecca Valsecca was a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Bergamo in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about northeast of Milan and about northwest of Bergamo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 411 and an area of .All demogr ...

, while French Connection chemists Alain Mazza and Gilles Pairone were refining 20 kilograms of heroin. Pannunzi was one of the first to understand that there was a lot more money to be made with cocaine, which was rapidly becoming the new drug of choice among the affluent. He set up a very profitable deal, trading 1 kilogram of heroin for 25 kilograms of cocaine in the U.S. using the differences in availability on both markets. As a result of the police dismantling the operation an arrest warrant was issued against Pannunzi for drug trafficking and criminal association.

Moving to Colombia

Pannunzi started to contact Colombian traffickers in Venezuela,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

and

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. He moved to Colombia where he would become one of the most important cocaine brokers for both the

and the Calabrian

with the Colombian cocaine cartels. According to the deputy chief prosecutor in

Reggio Calabria Reggio di Calabria ( scn, label= Southern Calabrian, Riggiu; el, label= Calabrian Greek, Ρήγι, Rìji), usually referred to as Reggio Calabria, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, is the largest city in Calabria. It has an estimated popul ...

, , Pannunzi would become "the only one who can sell both to the 'Ndrangheta and to Cosa Nostra. He is definitely the most powerful drug broker in the world".Cocaine Mafia boss arrested in Colombia
Channel 4 News, 6 July 2013 According to crime writer

, he traded cocaine to rival Italian crime families: "He collected money from the various families, often rival families. At the height of his criminal career he was trading 1,500 to 2,000 kilograms of cocaine a month. On a tapped phone, he was overheard boasting of the ease and confidence with which he handled his Colombian suppliers. To reinforce the bonds with his Colombian suppliers, Pannunzi arranged his son

Alessandro Pannunzi Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baricco ...

's marriage with a notorious family from the

First arrest, in Colombia

He was first arrested on January 28, 1994, in Medellin, Colombia, while attending the funeral of a Colombian friend.Cae enlace de mafia italiana
El Tiempo, January 29, 1994Un brusco risveglio
Narcomafie, September 2007 He had tried to bribe the policeman who arrested him offering one million US dollars. When he was visited in prison by an Italian police officer he boasted about the huge investments in property and precious stones in Canada, Australia, Medellin and Rome. He had unrestricted use of a cellular phone throughout the year he spent in prison in Colombia before his

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdict ...

to Italy, and hence was able to continue his business. Pannunzi was extradited to Italy in December 1994, but managed to escape in 1998 taking advantage of a temporary medical release. The next day he was on the run.Relazione conclusiva
Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della criminalità organizzata mafiosa o similare, January 2006 He became a fugitive based in Colombia. In 1999, he was included in the

list of most wanted fugitives in Italy The list of most wanted fugitives in Italy is a most wanted list published by the Italian Interior Ministry. It includes criminals who are considered extremely dangerous by the Polizia di Stato. The list was started in July 1992. There are also lis ...

Second arrest, in Spain

He was arrested again on April 5, 2004, in

, Spain, together with his son Alessandro Pannunzi and his right-hand man and son-in-law Francesco Antonio Bumbaca, married with his daughter Simona.Detenidos en Majadahonda tres miembros de la mafia calabresa
El Mundo, April 5, 2004 The arrests completed an investigation, known as Operation Igres, that resulted in a total of 42 arrests in three countries. In 2001 and 2002 the organization arranged shipments of over eight tons of cocaine from Colombia to be distributed to Italian crime groups in Europe. The extended network operated in Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Portugal, Spain, Greece, South Africa, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. "Every important criminal figure went to him," according to Diego Trotta, a member of an elite police squad that captured Pannunzi. Pannunzi was working with the 'Ndrangheta from the town of Platì, notably Paolo Sergi and Pasquale Marando, and

, a Sicilian Mafia boss based in Venezuela with links to

Giuseppe Guttadauro Giuseppe Guttadauro (born August 18, 1948 in Bagheria, Palermo province of Italy) is an Italian Mafia boss and a high-profile surgeon from the Rocella neighbourhood in Palermo. Born in Bagheria, he became the regent of the Brancaccio mandament ...

from the Mafia family from Brancaccio in Palermo. In 2010, he managed to escape from a private hospital in Rome, where he was being treated for heart disease.Italian 'mafia boss' captured: Europe's most wanted drugs trafficker arrested in Colombia
The Independent, 6 July 2013

Third arrest, in Colombia

On July 5, 2013, he was captured again in a shopping mall in Bogota, in a joint operation between the Colombian police and the DEA. He was immediately

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

to Italy to prevent a lengthy extradition procedure, to serve a -year sentence in Italy. "He is the biggest cocaine importer in the world," said Nicola Gratteri, deputy chief prosecutor in Reggio Calabria, when he was detained. "He is the only one who can organise purchases and sales of cocaine shipments of 3,000 kilos and up." According to crime writer Saviano "he was a sort of

Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated ...

of cocaine. He changed the way the business works, he understood the new dynamics of the cocaine market."

References

* Forgione, Francesco (2009).
Mafia export: Come ’Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra e Camorra hanno colonizzato il mondo
', Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai editore {{DEFAULTSORT:Pannunzi, Roberto Living people 1948 births 'Ndranghetisti Italian drug traffickers Canadian gangsters of Italian descent Italian emigrants to Canada People extradited from Colombia People extradited to Italy