Spanish police have arrested in Tarragona, Catalonia, Albanian Taulant Toma, 42 years old, known by the nickname “the wizard of escapes” and declared internationally wanted by Italian justice. According to the ANSA media, the arrest was carried out on Sunday, August 23, but was officially announced only today.
Investigative sources confirm that during the detention the wanted person has put up strong resistance to the police. Taulant Toma has a total of four escapes from penitentiary institutions in Europe, a figure that even surpasses the “record” of the well-known Italian criminal Felice Maniero.
His first escape was in 2009 from a prison in Terni, Italy, where he was captured after a few months in Pavia. In 2013, he escaped from guards at a high-security prison in Parma and fled to Belgium.
Two years later, in 2015, he escaped from a prison in the Flemish region of Belgium before being extradited back to Italy.
His fourth and most recent escape occurred on December 7, 2025, from the maximum security prison in Milan’s Opera. Toma silently cut through the bars of his third-floor cell and sat in the inner courtyard with tied sheets that he had gradually gathered.
To get over the 6-meter-high perimeter wall, he built a ladder with broomsticks and duct tape and used an iron hook secured inside the prison.
For this incident, the Prosecution has also put his cellmate, a 25-year-old man, under investigation, who is suspected of helping him by keeping guard or creating a “human pyramid.” Toma must serve another 22 years in prison and his sentence is expected to end in 2048.