An Italian mafia fugitive - who served as an intermediary with Colombian drug gangs - has been arrested after almost four years on the run in South America.

Luigi Belvedere, one of Italy's most wanted men, was tracked down to the city of Medell?n, where infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar's cartel was based.

Italian police released an image of Belvedere posing beside Escobar's tomb when they announced his arrest.

Despite fleeing Europe to evade trafficking charges, he continued to be "active in the organisation of drug shipments from South America to Europe," police said.

Belvedere, believed to be around 32 years old, was on the Italian government's list of most dangerous fugitives.

Originally from Caserta, north of Naples, he "specialised in the illegal importation of cocaine" and served as a key point of contact between mafia clans and the Colombian cocaine producers, Italian police said in a statement on Friday.

In Italy he worked with the Casalesi, who are part of the notorious Camorra mafia-type organisation.

Belvedere had been on the run since December 2020, when he was sentenced to almost 19 years for international drug trafficking.

Europol, the EU's policing body, worked alongside Colombian investigators to track Belvedere down in Medell?n.

The city has a long history with cocaine gangs, serving as the base for the Medell?n cartel, Pablo Escobar's infamous drug operation.

Established in the 1970s, it supplied an estimated 80% of the global cocaine market at its peak.

Escobar's operation was so sophisticated he found himself on the Forbes list of global billionaires for seven years, before being shot dead by police in 1993.

Italian police released a photo of Belvedere squatting beside Escobar's tomb.

The image invokes a photo of Escobar himself, who famously posed in front of the White House in Washington DC while still overseeing the Medell?n cartel. (BBC)

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