83-year-old Italian Gianfranco Seda, considered by investigators to be a representative of the Nuova Mala del Brenta criminal group, was detained in Italy immediately after his return on a flight from Sofia. He was wanted after leaving the place where he was serving house arrest and went to Bulgaria, Italian media reported, quoted by "Nova TV".
Seda's escape ended on the evening of August 10 at the "Federico Fellini" airport in Rimini. Border police officers were waiting for the plane arriving from the Bulgarian capital and detained the 83-year-old man as he got off.
Prior to his escape, Seda was under house arrest in a residential center for the elderly in Adria, province of Rovigo. On August 4, he left the establishment and became untraceable to the authorities. According to Italian media, he subsequently boarded a bus traveling to Bulgaria.
A few days later, investigators determined that Seda intended to return to Italy. His journey ended in Rimini, where he was detained immediately after the flight from Sofia landed. Thus, his search lasted less than a week.
Italian media describe Seda as having multiple convictions and link him to the Nuova Mala del Brenta - a criminal structure that emerged after the collapse of the historic Mala del Brenta in Veneto.
In 2022, he was sentenced to eight years in prison following an investigation into a brutal robbery of a villa in Pordenone. This is not his first escape - in 2023 he again violated the detention regime imposed on him.
According to Italian media, archival publications about a police operation from 2004 indicate Gianfranco Seda as a person who resided in Sofia and was suspected of supplying heroin from Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries to Italy.