A 74-year-old former member of Italy's Red Brigades who was awaiting extradition from Argentina has escaped from house arrest in Buenos Aires by abseiling from a fifth-floor balcony, and a nationwide manhunt is under way, the BBC reported on Wednesday, November 11.

Source: BBC News

Leonardo Bertulazzi used a harness to climb down from the balcony of his apartment in the San Telmo district on Tuesday afternoon, landing on a vacant lot next to the building, Argentine media reported. His escape was not immediately registered because he had tampered with his electronic ankle monitor so that it kept sending readings after he took it off — official sources told the newspaper Clarín he used a device to fake the body temperature, pulse and humidity measurements the tag records.

Federal Judge María Servini, who is handling the extradition case, ordered his immediate capture, Argentina's General Directorate of Criminal Intelligence issued a red alert for his urgent search and arrest, and the government offered a reward of 20 million pesos for information leading to him, according to Argentine reports carried by LaPresse.

Source: LaPresse / Canal 9 via Argentine press

74Age of Leonardo Bertulazzi, former Red Brigades member
27 yearsPrison sentence handed down in absentia in Italy for the 1977 kidnapping of naval engineer Pietro Costa
20 million pesosGovernment reward offered for information leading to his capture
July 2025When Argentina's Supreme Court confirmed his extradition to Italy

Wary of Bertulazzi's past with the Marxist guerrilla group and his bomb-making skills, police called in explosives experts in case the apartment had been rigged to detonate, according to Clarín.

Decades on the run

Bertulazzi was sentenced in absentia in Italy to 27 years in prison for his role in the 1977 kidnapping of naval engineer Pietro Costa by the Red Brigades' Genoa column, which held Costa for 81 days before a ransom was paid. The Red Brigades kidnapped and killed a number of state officials in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.

He was first arrested in Argentina in 2002, after crossing from Chile on a false passport, but was granted refugee status in 2004 and lived freely in the country for two decades. He was arrested again in 2024 after President Javier Milei took office, Argentina's Supreme Court confirmed his extradition in July 2025, and he had been kept under house arrest because of his age and health. Italian media say his extradition had been imminent after his last appeal was rejected.

Source: BBC News / The Insight International

What happens next: Argentine forces are searching nationwide under the red alert, and Judge Servini's capture order stands. If Bertulazzi is caught, the extradition to Italy that was confirmed last year would be expected to proceed; if he stays on the run, he resumes a fugitive history that has already spanned more than four decades and two continents.