Spanish police have arrested Albanian criminal Toma Taulant, a fugitive known as the escape wizard who broke out of four prisons in Italy and Belgium.
Officers from the Policía Nacional located Taulant living in the city of Tarragona, in northeastern Spain. Italian authorities had issued a European arrest warrant for him following his latest escape from a maximum-security prison.
Police described Taulant as a very dangerous fugitive who violently resisted officers during the raid on his residence. Several fellow Albanian nationals accompanied him at the property and tried to prevent officers from taking him into custody, including one man who struck and injured two police officers.
Violent arrest in Tarragona
Authorities officially identified the suspect by the initials T.T., which match Toma Taulant. He was dubbed the escape wizard, or mago della fuga, in the Italian media for his long history of prison breakouts.
Before his latest escape in December 2025, Taulant was serving a sentence in Italy that was scheduled to run until 2048. Italian media reports cited by news agency AFP stated that his sentence was imposed for a series of convictions, including violent robbery, theft, and drug trafficking.
Following his arrest in Tarragona, officers discovered that Taulant was carrying false identity documents. Checks on those documents revealed that he had an existing criminal record in the Catalan city of Girona for the unlawful possession of weapons and explosives.
Four prison breakouts across Europe
Police also seized two 500-euro banknotes from Taulant during the raid, which investigators believe are counterfeit.
Taulant's record of prison escapes dates back to 2009, when he fled a correctional facility in the central Italian city of Terni. Four years later, in 2013, he escaped from a prison in Parma, in northern Italy.
Later in 2013, Taulant escaped from a prison in Belgium after forming a human pyramid with fellow prisoners to scale the perimeter wall. His fourth escape occurred eight months ago, in December 2025, when he fled a maximum-security prison in Milan, Italy, by sawing through window bars and descending with tied bedsheets.
Extradition proceedings to Italy
Following his arrest, a Spanish judge denied Taulant bail. He has been remanded in custody in a Spanish jail pending his extradition to Italy.
