Fábio Loureiro was serving 25 years for crimes committed in Algarve
One of the five prisoners who escaped in broad daylight last month from Alcoentre’s high security Vale de Judeus prison has been arrested in Morocco.
Fábio Loureiro, known as “Cigano” (gypsy), was serving a 25-year jail term for numerous crimes. In his ‘criminal heyday’, he was dubbed “the terror of the Algarve”.
PJ police have announced his arrest in a statement: “The escapee from Vale de Judeus Prison, Fábio Loureiro, was arrested yesterday, at 10pm, in Tangier, by Moroccan authorities, with the collaboration of the Spanish authorities, in close coordination with PJ Judicial Police which, since the day of the escape, on September 7, has carried out uninterrupted investigation and information gathering work.”
Loureiro, one of two Portuguese prisoners who escaped on a Saturday morning at a point where guards were changing shifts, will now be brought before judicial authorities in Morocco with a view to being extradited to Portugal to serve the rest of his sentence (potentially now facing increased time penalties).
As the PJ statement recalls, his crimes include drug trafficking, criminal association, robbery, kidnapping and money laundering.
The circumstances of how Loureiro came to be arrested have not been explained (see update below).
When the five men made their escape last month, police warned that they were highly dangerous and capable of killing in order to remain free. Thus journalists will be keen to learn the details of this arrest.
CNN Portugal has hinted that Loureiro will almost certainly be remanded to the country’s ‘toughest’ high-security prison, Monsanto, once he is extradited to Portugal – ironically, monsanto being the jail in which he is understood to have met some of his fellow escapees.
The news comes on the day prison guards are holding a vigil in support of colleagues at Vale de Judeus who were blamed for the prison-break by sacked former prisons director Rui Abrunhosa Gonçalves.
Still ‘on the run’ are the other Portuguese escapee Fernando Ribeiro Ferreira, Georgian Shergili Farjiani, Argentine Rodolf José Lohrmann, and British citizen Mark Cameron Roscaleer. All were serving sentences for violent crimes. But, according to Expresso, authorities were most concerned to recapture Loureiro and Rodolf Lohrmann by dint of the criminal pasts and tendencies of both men. In other words, it’s a case of ‘one important one down, another to go – and then focus on the remaining three’.
UPDATE: News channels are reporting this afternoon that PJ police had been ‘watching’ Loureiro’s girlfriend since the jailbreak. When she set off for Morocco, they followed. It also appears Loureiro spent time in Spain (Seville, particularly) before arriving in Morocco. He was arrested in the company of an ‘accomplice’, also Portuguese, (possibly one of the men involved in assisting the jailbreak).
As for the other escapees, if they remain in Europe, the chances of re-capture and extradition remain relatively positive. Flight to countries like any in South America would complicate matters for Portuguese authorities, as the majority do not have extradition agreements with Portugal.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
