A top mafia boss has been busted after Italian police found him hiding out in a secret room behind his wardrobe in his home in southern Italy.One of Italy's most dangerous fugitives, 54-year-old Antonio Pelle was busted Wednesday after escaping in 2011, when he slipped out of a hospital in southern Italy, according to The Guardian. When he was first arrested in 2008, he had been serving a 20-year sentence for mafia association and arms and drug smuggling.
According to the Telegraph, Pelle got himself admitted to the hospital in 2011 by taking "a massive amount of slimming pills, smuggled in by persons unknown, to simulate anorexia." After escaping from the hospital, he had been hiding in the town of Locri in Reggio Calabria, a southern region in Italy.
Fifty police were searching the villa in the small town of Benestare where Pelle had always lived when one of the officers with "a very attentive eye" found Pelle's hiding spot, according to Reuters. Pelle, one of the leaders of the Calabrian mafia, aka 'Ndrangheta, was hiding in a secret room behind a wardrobe between his son's bedroom and the bathroom. The room had some water, cash, a fan, and a mattress.
Over the past twenty years with Pelle at the helm, the 'Ndragheta has become the wealthiest and most powerful organized crime group in Italy. The group is one of the biggest importers of South American cocaine in Europe.
You can watch the police video of Pelle crawling out of his hiding place:
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