We just never know where a Mafia fugitive might unexpectedly pop up. It might even
be a perplexing appearance in a jihadist outpost in a shadowy part of the world. The mob moves in
mysterious ways, certainly, but Italy's Camorra Mafia drug trafficker Bruno Carbone, one of
Europe's most wanted fugitives, being captured in Syria's disputed northern borderland by a former
Al-Qaeda affiliate took even jaded mob watchers by surprise. The Mob Reporter here with a deep
dive into a still unraveling story, a dangerous globe trot from one of Italy's sturdiest Mafia
strongholds to jihadi territory in the Middle East, past a hidden drug war in the desert
before returning to Italy, where shocking news of mob betrayal emerged. Let me tell you about it
The chain of events revolves around this guy: Bruno Carbone, 45 years old, an Italian
mobster and international drug broker who, until recently, sat as one of Europe's Most Wanted
Carbone had been on the run since 2003, fleeing a 20-year sentence for international trafficking
This is just some of what he left behind. Carbone was caught crossing from Turkey into disputed
regions of northwestern Syria back in March — but nobody knew it. He was captured by the Hayat Tahrir
al-Sham, known as HTS, a militant group controlling the borderlands of Idlib. He told his captors he
was a Mexican on the run to avoid paying a fine for selling fake Rolex watches. He spoke
Spanish and had documents to support his claim. It appears he was turned over to what's called
the Syrian Salvation Government, which controls patches of territory in that troubled region
but their investigation revealed a greater truth about the man they held. In the words
of an official in Idlib, Carbone is an heir to the Camorra Mafia and a prolific drug trafficker
The official said Carbone bribed and tricked his way through several
countries trying to get to regions controlled by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Carbone's goal, the
rebels said, was to "get as close as he could to the world's chief drug source." That's
a hard swipe at Assad as accusations pile up that he's running at de facto narco state. It's unusual
for such militant groups in the area to work cooperatively with Western governments, and the
awkwardness of this was obvious. The Idlib rebels thanked Turkey for helping sending Carbone back
Italy arrested Carbone when his plane landed in Rome but Italian officials didn't mention
Syria or the jihadis; they instead thanked the United Arab Emirates. Since the rebels don't
have relationships with Western governments, it is plausible that Turkey, the UAE, or both helped
negotiate and arrange Carbone's deportation. One thing that is clear is that European authorities
consider Carbone to be a high value target, an elite part of the powerful Camorra, one of
Italy's traditional Mafias that formed in Naples. Carbone, they say, was responsible for large-scale
procurement of cocaine in South America, destined for Europe, usually through Spain, in cahoots with
Colombian cartels and Raffaele Imperiale, another Camorra mega-trafficker. We'll
come back to a shocker about Imperiale in a moment, but we're not yet done with Carbone
Like the best underworld yarns, Carbone's story comes with a side step into farce. In 2019, it
was announced that Carbone had been arrested in Dubai after being stopped in an airport. After a
month in prison, they figured out the poor guy's pleas of Innocence were right — it was the wrong
guy. The man was guilty only of looking like the mobster. It's hard to ignore a known Camorra drug
trafficker like Carbone being in that part of the world. It brings attention to a wild hidden
War on Drugs, one that involves regular firefights with casualties mounting each month. The Kingdom
of Jordan says it's waging a war with armed pro-Assad cartels who are smuggling a flood of
Captagon across the border from Syria. Captagon is an amphetamine pill. Once a pharmaceutical
prescription, it's now banned in most countries, although in a counterfeit form it remains popular
in the Middle East. The Captagon cartels are a blend of organized criminals and armed militias
Drugs dangling from drones, larger loads packed in trucks, all routinely smuggled
through the border between Syria and Jordan and then sent on to the Gulf States
Nine million pills, for example, were found hidden in these fake oranges in Beirut. The heat of these
border skirmishes can be seen through one that's recently been prosecuted. When Jordan's armed
forces detected a border incursion, they responded forcefully. Three smugglers were killed and two
injured in a firefight; six others ran back into Syria. The two that were injured were sentenced to
20 years hard labor. The amounts being seized are wild — and we know they aren't getting everything
Not even close. In June about 1.5 million Captagons were seized by Jordanian officials
during multiple operations. This batch was seized in October: 818 000 Captagon pills after a shootout
Another skirmish unearthed another 600,000 pills. A particularly large load was captured after a
dawn shootout in late October. The Jordanian army captured a truck stuffed with six million pills. In
November, Jordanian authorities incinerated drugs seized in 49- cases, including hashish, heroin, marijuana
meth, five million Captagon pills, and a tiny amount of cocaine — less than a kilo. It shows coke is really a
Western obsession. More fighting with smugglers in Jordan came this week. After a shootout the
army found hashish, ammunition, and more than three million Captagon pills left behind. Also this
week, across the Arabian peninsula in Kuwait, authorities there announced a seizure of their
own: 335 kilos of hashish and one million Captagon pills. It was smuggled by sea hidden in vehicles
Carbone's presence might also help connect a shocking discovery from the summer of 2020. A
world record stash of Captagon pills found not in the Middle East, but at a port in southern Italy
This is an astonishing sight — 84 million pills weighing 14 tons, hidden in heavy paper rolls and
industrial machinery. It was valued at more than a billion dollars. Italian investigators say the
product was destined for the Camorra and came from Syria. With the situation there at the time, they
pinned the source on ISIS, the terror group, but it turns out it was linked to the Syrian regime. Could
Carbone have been building an alliance there? Could he have been looking for sanctuary? Well
we might one day know exactly what he was doing because there's one last twist that may have even
deeper ramifications on the underworld's elite. Italian media describe it as an "earthquake" hitting
gangland with reports that Carbone and Raffaele Imperiale have agreed to cooperate with Italian
authorities to become "pentiti" as they say in the language of Italy; "rats" as they say in English. Just
when rumors of Imperiale's cooperation spread, so did arrest warrants, leading to these raids targeting
28 people believed to be linked to Imperiale's Italian operation. Imperiale's cooperation might
well have made it possible for the incredible arrest last month in Dubai of six members of the
so-called Super Cartel. Imperiale was a key part of that group until his arrest in Dubai last year
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