the lengthy and armor-plated period on the run and in hiding of the elusive Camorra boss finally came to an end yesterday around noon when the men from the DIA knocked down the last partition wall in the bunker where Sandokan had taken refuge in the town he controlled his hometown Casale di Principe the last partition wall came down around midday battered by pickaxes and sledgehammers and the last boss of the Casale gang surrendered half an hour later emerging from the tunnel with his young daughters in his arms as a shield and a guarantee he wouldn’t attack the officers this marked an end to the long nightmare the hunt for the Phantom the man with a thousand tricks and inexhaustible resources Sandokan is finally behind bars the cunning and murderous boss charged with dozens of killings and the target of six arrest warrants has finally been handcuffed and led away right where it had all begun in his hometown he had returned home just five hundred feet away from the family bunker he was running the town and commanding his men from an underground lair an apartment built on the foundations of the old Bourbon-era sewers and communications trenches covered over by the passage of time and by the ruins of the city concealed by the underworld of the anti State

the DIA raid was unleashed during the night now it’s twelve-twenty pm the sound of a jackhammer far too close to the hideout Sandokan the totò riina the capo di tutti capi of the Camorra surrenders his surrender takes the form of a despairing shout I’m here with the children don’t shoot there are children it’s the end of his five year long flight from the law the end of a criminal legend Guido Longo the chief of the DIA in Campania handcuffs Sandokan other police officers take in their arms the two little weeping cherubs Angelica age three and Chiara two years old born during his time on the run another of the boss’s numerous jeers at the state and the authorities at twelve fifteen yesterday the crucial events a voice from behind a wall called out please don’t do anything I have two little girls I surrender it was the voice of Sandokan from the depths of his hideout his bunker he had heard the police getting closer they caught him with his daughters in his arms inside an apartment made up of two bedrooms a bathroom a kitchen and a dining room Sandokan hid out in this citadel the entrance was something out of pulp fiction a slab of granite on a pair of runners it could be slid into place in the wall concealing any trace and concealing the entrance completely

the DIA after an intense week of stakeouts phone taps and listening devices were stunned when they knocked down a twenty-five-foot gate blocking access to the villa they found the residence deserted a car pulls up the automatic gate slides open it’s the driver of the boss’s wife this triggers the raid forty officers mob the car inside the villa inside the boss’s lair they search every room to their immense surprise there’s not a trace of Sandokan the DIA chief won’t give up easily Guido Longo accepts the challenge boys he says to his officers we’re not leaving here without Sandokan it’s eleven pm and a manhunt begins that will last the rest of the night they dig they knock on walls they look everywhere tear gas in the air ducts thirteen hours of hunting yesterday a little after noon at twelve fifteen pm the latter day Phantom is discovered the policemen are forced to demolish a false wall of granite a sliding panel on rollers out of the narrow opening he steps a fugitive from the law since November 1993 accompanied by his two daughters one of the girls had her birthday just a few days ago and his wife Giuseppina Natta