Spain arrests Albanian who had escaped four European prisons

Spanish police have arrested a 42-year-old Albanian man known in Italian media as the "escape wizard" for his repeated ability to break out of prison. The man, whose full identity police said matches the initials of Toma Taulant, was located and detained in the city of Tarragona in northeastern Spain. His arrest followed a European arrest warrant issued by Italian authorities.

According to police, the man actively and physically resisted arrest, and associates also attempted to interfere with the operation, resulting in injuries to two police officers.

A history of prison breaks

Over his criminal career, the man escaped from four different prisons in Italy and Belgium, each time using a different method — from sawing through bars to descending on knotted bedsheets, and even forming a human pyramid to scale a prison wall.

His first escape took place in 2009 from a prison in Italy. The most widely noted escape occurred in 2013, from a maximum-security wing, alongside another inmate serving a life sentence who was killed two years later while breaking into a jeweler's home. After that escape, Italian police searched for the man for 40 days before discovering he had already been arrested in Belgium — only for him to escape from custody there as well a few months later.

His most recent escape took place in December 2025 from a maximum-security prison in Italy, when he sawed through iron bars and scaled a six-meter prison wall under cover of darkness during a guard shift change. He had been sentenced for several crimes, including robbery and drug trafficking, with a term extending until October 2048.