‘Mafia fugitive’ is arrested after he was found working in Dutch city’s top pizzeria – as police admit ‘we’ve had complaints we’ve handcuffed the best pizza maker in town’
- Alfredo Marfella, 57, was working as a pizza maker at La Lanterna in The Hague
- The restaurant was yards away from the police station and officers ate there
- An arrest warrant was issued for Alfredo in 2016 for smuggling cocaine to Italy
An alleged Mafia fugitive has been arrested after he was found working at a Dutch pizzeria just around the corner from The Hague’s main police station where officers would regularly eat.
Alfredo Marfella, 57, was working as a pizza maker at La Lanterna, one of The Hague’s oldest and best Italian restaurants.
An international arrest warrant was issued for him in 2016 for smuggling cocaine and other drugs from the Netherlands and Spain to Naples in Italy where the alleged gang members come from.
Alfredo Marfella has been arrested after he was found working at a Dutch pizzeria despite being a Mafia fugitive
Marfella, 57, was working as a pizza maker at La Lanterna (pictured), one of The Hague’s oldest and best Italian restaurants located just around the corner from the city’s main police station
The drugs were then sold there to crime families from the Camorra, the local Mafia, according to Dutch paper AD.
This operation was run from a different pizzeria in The Hague which was identified by Italian detectives.
But when police raided in 2016, they arrested 15 people but Alfredo was the only one to escape and he went on to work elsewhere, namely at La Lanterna.
He was praised for his culinary skills, regularly posting his creations on the restaurant’s Facebook page despite being the subject of an arrest warrant.
One police source said: ‘We have had complaints that we have handcuffed the best pizza maker in the city.’
The chef was praised for his culinary skills, regularly posting his creations on the restaurant’s Facebook page despite being the subject of an arrest warrant
Alfredo was arrested on his way to work.
The manager of La Lanterna, which has been making pizzas for 45 years, was taken by surprise and said: ‘We did not know that he was wanted, otherwise I would not have hired him.’
The drug organisation also has ties with an illustrious Italian lady, Federica Gagliardi, according to Italian media.
She became known as La Dama Bianca (the White Lady) when she appeared alongside the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a G8 meeting in 2010.
She was arrested at Rome’s Fiumicino airport with 24 kilos of pure cocaine in her bag four years later.