The Mafia’s Foreign Minister

The nickname given to Italian drugs trafficker Salvatore Miceli.

A convicted Italian drugs trafficker, Salvatore Miceli, was arrested recently in Venezuela on suspicion of trafficking cocaine, heroin and morphine, in a joint operation between Italian and Venezuelan police forces, according to The Associated Press:

Miceli was one of Europe’s top five drug traffickers, said Capt. Antonello Parasiliti of the Carabinieri police in Trapani, who led the Italian police operation to arrest Miceli in Venezuela.

Parasiliti told The Associated Press by phone interview that Miceli worked as a middleman between Italy’s and South America’s organized crime groups, leading fellow mobsters to call him the “Mafia’s foreign minister” and “the chicken that lays golden eggs.”

The A.P. reported that Miceli has been on the run since 2001; “To avoid capture, Miceli ensured that people who came to meet him started out early in the morning – reaching him in the evening after changing clothes and taking elaborate routes to elude any followers, Parasiliti said.”

(In January 2009, Mexican officials arrested a man nicknamed El Pozolero– The Stew-Maker – who confessed to dissolving in acid the remains of 300 people, at the behest of Teodoro García Simental – a Mexican drugs baron.)