Fugitive Italian businessman Giulio Lolli who is accused of a major yacht sale scam and who fled to Libya in 2010 is reported to have been arrested in Tripoli by the Rada Special Deterrence forces of Abdul Raouf Kara.
Lolli, from Bologna, is wanted by the Italian police in relation to the Rimini Yacht scam in which he is alleged to have sold the same yachts to several buyers. It is claimed also that he defrauded the tax authorities of several millions.
He apparently used one of the yachts to flee to Libya the year before the revolution. There he was arrested by officials of the Qaddafi regime who, however, refused to extradite him back to Italy. He was then freed during the revolution and joined it, becoming an officer in the Special Maritime Security Forces based in Tripoli. Since then he has supposedly been involved in preventing human trafficking. Married to a Libyan woman earlier this year, he is known in Tripoli as Captain Karim.
It appears that Rada has arrested him on an international arrest warrant issued by the Rimini public prosecutor. This would indicate that the Libyan authorities in Tripoli are now prepared to extradite him.
The arrest occurred last Tuesday but has only just been disclosed.
Meanwhile, the Italian authorities have announced that they have seized synthetic opiates with a street value of more than €50 million that the so-called Islamic State was planning to sell to finance its activities in Libya, Syria and Iraq.
The 24 million Tramadol pills were seized in the port of Gioia Tauro in Reggio Calabria.
