8 Dec 2011

Mafia chief captured after 16 years

11:22 am on 8 December 2011

Police in Italy have captured a mafia chief who has eluded them for 16 years.

Michele Zagaria, 53, was found in a bunker in his home town of Casapesenna, near Naples on Wednesday.

He was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for murder in 2008.

The Casalesi clan is one of a number of groups within the Camorra network, which dominates the underworld in the Naples area.

Former Naples magistrate Raffaele Cantone compared the arrest to that of Bernardo Provenzano of Sicily in 2006.

The ABC reports Zagaria will be transferred to a high-security prison near Novara in northern Italy, where he will be isolated in his own cell and monitored 24 hours per day.