Castellammare di Stabia. The drug lord arrested in Dubai Imperial Raphael.
Considered one of the most dangerous fugitives and a long-time protagonist of international drug trafficking and money laundering, Imperiale was arrested last August 4.
The arrest took place as part of investigations coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Naples and conducted by Gico of Naples and from Flying Squad of the Naples Police Headquarters, with the support of the Central Services of the Guardia di Finanza and the State Police.
Identified by the Italian police forces, the arrest was carried out by the authorities of Dubai thanks to an intense international judicial and police cooperation activity carried out by the Ministry of Justice, the Service for International Police Cooperation, also through the Agencies Interpol and Europol.
Raffaele Imperiale is placed at the top of the list of fugitives of maximum danger of the Central Directorate of Criminal Police.
Born in Castellammare di Stabia on 24 October 1974, initially known to investigators as Lello of Ponte Persica, a fraction of the Neapolitan municipality that also gave birth to the boss Ferdinand Cesarano, was able to build an impressive network of international traffickers, particularly of cocaine.
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The activity of international brokerage and the business relationship with the Neapolitan organised crime were crystallised in the first decade of 2000, when contacts with Camorristi of the DiLauro clan of Secondigliano, including Elio Amato and Antonio Orefice. A bond that survived even the split between the Amato and Di Lauro clans.
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Over the years there have been numerous arrests and seizures that have hit Imperiale's organization: among these we remember the maxi-seizure of 1.330 kilos of cocaine occurred in Paris on September 20, 2013, when on that occasion the most loyal follower was arrested Vincenzo Aprea, who had been entrusted with the task of supervising the importation of the drug arriving on a scheduled Air France flight from Caracas, Venezuela.
His illicitly accumulated wealth allowed him to purchase on the black market two paintings by Van Gogh of inestimable value, stolen in 2002 from Amsterdam in Holland and found by the Guardia di Finanza of the Economic and Financial Police Unit of Naples in an old villa in Castellammare di Stabia in 2016.
On January 22, 2021, Imperiale - while on the run - gave an interview to the newspaper "Il Mattino" declaring himself innocent of the affair, asserting that he had bought the very precious paintings as an art enthusiast.
The Ministry of Justice is currently finalizing agreements to complete the extradition procedure quickly.
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