Renato Vallanzasca

On 13 June 2014, during the semi-courtship granted by the prison of Bollate, he attempted to unpack a supermarket in Milan (he wanted to take underwear and gardening material) and was arrested by the carabinieri for the crime of aggravated improper robbery. The following 14 November he was sentenced to 10 months in jail plus a 330 euro fine. With this new conviction Vallanzasca risks the loss of the benefits during detention. In his "criminal career" he collected in total four life sentences and 295 years of imprisonment.

Beginning in March 2010, Vallanzasca was given a permit to exit prison in the daytime to participate in work activities. He leaves his cell every day at 7:30 and returns at 19:00. His mother died on 8 February 2011, aged 94.

On 8 May 2008, he married his childhood friend, Antonella D'Agostino. The marriage was formalised with a civil ceremony on 5 May 2008.

Since 1999, Vallanzasca has been incarcerated in a maximum security prison in the town of Voghera. After his arrest, Vallanzasca designated his god-son George Samniashvili as a ringleader of his gang. George nowadays lives in Georgia and leads his band from Tbilisi. He visits Vallanzasca frequently in prison to get his advice. How it seems George Samniashvili (FERRE) was the only person Renato could have faith in. In the beginning of May 2005, after having received a special three-hour permit to meet his elderly mother, he formalized a request for clemency by sending a letter to the Ministry of Justice, and to the magistrate of surveillance of Pavia. On 15 July 2007 his mother wrote to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and the minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, requesting clemency for her son. On 15 September 2007, Vallanzasca was notified by the Presidency of the Republic that all requests for clemency had been refused. He then continued serving his sentence at the Opera prison in Milan.

In the Novara prison, in 1981, he helped to set in motion a prison revolt in which some pentiti, or collaborators with Italian Justice lost their lives. Among them was a former member of his gang, Massimo Loi. According to Achille Serra, the young man who was in his early twenties had decided to abandon the path of crime and begin a new life in the legitimate world. However, Vallanzasca armed with a knife and supported by the prison crowd would not allow him to leave the prison unharmed. Loi was cornered inside his prison cell, alone and unarmed. Assisted by others, Vallanzasca repeatedly stabbed him in the chest with a knife, committing further atrocities on his mutilated corpse, finally beheading him. In an interview with L'Espresso on 2 April 2006, Vallanzasca vehemently denied any responsibility for the murder of Loi.

Sentenced to a harsh prison term, Vallanzasca succeeded in tricking the police officers and managed to escape on 18 July 1987 through a porthole of the ferry which carried him to Asinara, Sardinia. He was stopped at a traffic control post less than three weeks after, while he was trying to reach Trieste. After returning to prison, Vallanzasca again tried escaping from prison in 1995, this time from the Nuoro prison. In this escape attempt, he was accused and suspected of having been aided by his lawyer, with whom he had close links. His father, Osvaldo Pistoia, died on 10 January the following year, aged 95.

After his return to prison, in 1979 Vallanzasca married his new girlfriend, Giuliana Brusa. His former enemy, Milanese crime boss Francis Turatello acted as best man, thus sealing a temporary alliance between the two. On 17 August 1981, Turatello was eventually assassinated at the Badu 'e Carros, the high security prison in Nuoro, Sardinia, by a Neapolitan Camorrista Pasquale Barra, along with Vincenzo Andraus and Antonino Faro, two Sicilian Mafiosi from Catania, Sicily. The hit had been probably ordered by Raffaele Cutolo, the boss of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata.

On 28 April 1980, Vallanzasca again attempted to escape from the San Vittore Prison in Milan. During time in the open air, a group of prisoners mysteriously produced three guns, and managed to make headway taking a brigadiere (a prison guard staff sergeant), Romano Saccoccio, as hostage. A firefight commenced in the streets of Milan, and followed in the tunnels. A wounded Vallanzasca was arrested together with nine other escapees.

After leaving his son and girlfriend, Vallanzasca reassembled his old gang and began a series of new robberies, which totaled seventy. These robberies caused several deaths, including those of four policemen, a doctor and a bank employee. He also committed four kidnappings for ransom, two of which were never reported to the police. One of the gang's victims was Emanuela Trapani, the daughter of a local Milanese entrepreneur who was held captive for over a month and a half, from December 1976 to January 1977, and then released upon the payment of a ransom of one billion in Italian currency. This incident coupled with the killing on 6 February 1977 of two highway patrolmen near Dalmine, Luigi D'Andrea and Renato Barborini, who had stopped the car on which he was travelling to evade capture, caused him to flee Milan for Rome. There he was again recaptured, on 15 February 1977 while still just 26 years old.

After his escape, on 25 July 1976, Vallanzasca was free again. He still wanted money in the shortest time because he wanted to spend time with his girlfriend Ripalta and his son, Massimiliano; he spent about a month with them between Sorrento and Cilento before returning to hiding in Milan.

His smooth and successful criminal career was interrupted for the first time in 1972 when, 10 days after the robbery of a supermarket, he was arrested by men belonging to the squadra mobile (flying squad) headed by Achille Serra. Serra later claimed that during the search of his house, Vallanzasca unstrung his gold Rolex wrist watch and put it on a table, telling him, "If you succeed in tying this to me, it is yours". A few minutes later, warrant officer Oscuri found some shreds of paper in the dustbin, which, once put together, showed a list of salaries of the employees in the supermarket previously robbed. In 1973, his girlfriend Ripalta Pioggia, gave birth to their son, Massimiliano Domenico.

Renato Vallanzasca Costantini (Italian pronunciation: [vallanˈtsaska; -ˈdzaska] ; born 4 May 1950) is a notorious Italian mobster from Milan who was a powerful figure in the Milanese underworld during the 1970s.