Leonardo Bertulazzi: the Red Brigades fugitive who fooled his ankle monitor with pork meat

He is 74, in poor health, and a 27-year prison sentence is waiting for him in Italy. And yet Leonardo Bertulazzi managed to do something you usually only see in films: he climbed out of a fifth-floor balcony in a harness, fooled his electronic ankle monitor and vanished into the streets of Buenos Aires.

The escape happened on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, in the San Telmo neighbourhood. As we write, the former terrorist is still on the run. The Argentine government has offered a reward of 20 million pesos, about 11,000 euros, for information leading to his capture.

It is not Bertulazzi’s first escape. It is his second, 46 years after the first one.

Who is Leonardo Bertulazzi?

Bertulazzi was born in Verona in 1951 but grew up in Genoa. In the 1970s he joined the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse), the far-left armed group that terrorised Italy in the so-called “Years of Lead”. From 1977 he was one of the leaders of the Genoa column, under the nom de guerre “Stefano”.

On 12 January 1977 the Red Brigades kidnapped naval engineer Pietro Costa in Genoa. He belonged to the Costa family, the shipowners behind the famous cruise line. Costa was held for 81 days and released after a ransom of one and a half billion lire was paid, roughly 7 million euros in today’s money.

That money played a huge part in Italian history. According to investigators, the Red Brigades used part of the ransom to buy a flat at Via Camillo Montalcini 8, in Rome. The following year, that is where they held former prime minister Aldo Moro for 55 days, after kidnapping him and killing his five bodyguards in Via Fani.

Bertulazzi, however, was never charged or convicted in the Moro case. His 27-year sentence is for the Costa kidnapping, subversive association and membership of an armed gang.

The first escape, in 1980

On 17 September 1980 police recognised him in Genoa, together with other members of the group, outside the home of the city’s mayor, Fulvio Cerofolini. Investigators believed the mayor might be the target of an attack. Bertulazzi got away. From that day on, he was a fugitive.

He passed through Greece and Portugal and then reached South America. In the late 1980s he settled in Buenos Aires with his partner, a German doctor. There he built a new life, far from the Italian courts that went on to convict him in absentia.

Twenty years of legal battles

In November 2002 Argentine police arrested him in Buenos Aires after weeks of surveillance. It looked like the end of the road, but it was not. In July 2003 a court released him, because Argentine law does not allow the extradition of someone convicted in absentia.

In 2004 Argentina granted him political refugee status. For twenty years Bertulazzi lived openly in Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile, in Italy, his legal position changed more than once. In 2017 the Court of Assizes of Appeal in Genoa ruled that his sentence had expired under the statute of limitations. In 2018, however, the same court reversed its decision: the 2002 arrest had restarted the clock, so the sentence was still valid.

The turning point came in August 2024. Argentina revoked his refugee status, and on 29 August Bertulazzi was arrested again, in an operation that also involved Italian officers. In July 2025 Argentina’s Supreme Court approved his extradition. In August 2025, because of his age and health problems, he was moved to house arrest, with an electronic monitor on his ankle.

The first attempt

His lawyer, Rodolfo Yanzón, kept filing appeals. He argued that his client was still a refugee and that he was ill: the defence spoke of epilepsy and, according to some sources, of three strokes suffered in custody.

In recent weeks, though, the appeals had been rejected one after another. According to the Argentine newspaper Infobae, about two weeks before the escape Bertulazzi had already tried to remove his ankle monitor. That time the alarm went off. Police asked for him to be moved to a prison or a police station, but the judge decided to leave him at home, with a guard post outside the building.

How he fooled the electronic ankle monitor

An electronic ankle monitor does not only track where a person is. Many models also measure temperature and other signals from the skin: if the device is taken off the ankle, the readings change suddenly and the alarm goes off.

Bertulazzi seems to have studied exactly this. When officers entered the flat, they found a metal box with wires. They called the bomb squad, fearing it was an explosive device. Instead, inside there was a plastic tube, a heating pad, a piece of pork meat and a blood pressure monitor. The ankle monitor was there too, wrapped in the meat.

According to the reconstruction by the newspaper La Capital of Mar del Plata, with this set-up the temperature and humidity recorded by the device did not change, so the alarm never went off. The most likely explanation is that the meat, kept warm by the heating pad, played the part of his leg. Investigators, however, have not yet explained in detail how the trick worked, or what exactly the blood pressure monitor was for.

Some Italian newspapers wrote that the device was also sending a fake heartbeat. On this point the sources disagree, and there is no official confirmation.

Down from the fifth floor

Bertulazzi’s flat was on the fifth floor of a building on Calle Defensa, in the heart of San Telmo, the old tango district. He climbed over the balcony with a harness and climbing ropes and lowered himself towards an abandoned lot next to the building.

The last part, though, did not go to plan. According to Infobae he fell at least five metres, then another two, and hit his head. A private security camera on Calle Bolívar filmed part of the escape. The video shows an elderly man getting up, straightening his clothes, holding his sore wrist and sitting down on a low wall a couple of times. Then he walks away, without drawing any attention.

Who noticed, and when

Nobody, for several hours. Two officers of the Federal Police were stationed outside the building, working 24-hour shifts. At every change of shift they rang the bell to check that the prisoner was at home.

On Tuesday nobody answered. The officers went up to the flat and knocked. After a few minutes Bertulazzi’s wife opened the door in tears and said her husband had escaped. Meanwhile, the centre monitoring the ankle device kept reporting that he was at home. In a way, it was true: the ankle monitor was there. He was not.

The manhunt

Federal judge María Romilda Servini, who is handling the extradition case, has ordered a series of raids. Argentina’s Ministry of Security has offered the 20-million-peso reward and released a photo of the former terrorist. Investigators are trying to find out whether anyone helped him plan the escape: so far, no accomplice has been identified.

In Italy the news has reopened an old wound. Many former terrorists from the Years of Lead fled abroad and never served their sentences. Bertulazzi was very close to becoming one of the few exceptions. Now, at 74, he is on the run again.

Sources: Il Post, Infobae, La Capital, Quotidiano Nazionale, Domani, Open. Updated on 13 November 2026.