
Seven aliases, a forged identity card and a nearly four-year-long escape in the mountains of eastern Albania. This is how the escape of the 42-year-old Albanian convicted of a series of thefts in Italy ended.
After extradition to Italy, he must serve 5 years, 9 months and 5 days in prison, as well as pay a fine of 1,640 euros.
The 42-year-old arrived at Rome Fiumicino airport on a flight from Rinas, accompanied by personnel from the International Police Cooperation Service. Upon arrival, he was handed over to Air Border Police agents and, after completing the relevant procedures, was transferred to the Viterbo prison.
The search began in 2022, when a decision to join sentences, issued by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Pordenone, could not be executed because the convict could not be found.
From that moment on, investigators began following his trail, gradually reconstructing their target's movements. The investigation led to his location in a mountainous area not far from Albania's border with North Macedonia.
On March 11, the 42-year-old was identified and detained by Albanian authorities at the port of Durrës. During checks at the border crossing, police determined that the person Armando Valchizan also used the names Armando Dervishi, Armando Gheorghe, Altin Dervishi and Martin Dervishi.
From that time on, the necessary procedure for his surrender to the Italian authorities began, which ended with his transfer to Fiumicino on August 12.
The operation was made possible thanks to the cooperation between Italian and Albanian law enforcement agencies, as well as the coordination of the Interpol offices in Rome and Tirana.
The thefts were committed between 2013 and 2016. He was convicted of six thefts committed in Lignano Sabbiadoro, in the province of Udine, and in Caorle, in Venice.
The targets were mainly holiday homes and hotel rooms, in areas that are characterized by a large and continuous influx of tourists during the tourist season. These cases are joined by another theft in a house in Rome, committed in September 2015.
One of the elements that complicated the identification of the 42-year-old was his systematic use of different identities. Over the years, the man had used at least seven aliases, in an attempt to evade checks and make it more difficult to connect with his identity.
In 2016, in Caorle, the Carabinieri stopped him and found a forged Romanian identity card on him. That check led to the criminal proceedings for document forgery.
The variety of identities used made the process of proving beyond any doubt that the person found in Albania was precisely the person to whom the decision of the Italian authorities referred particularly complicated.