Leonardo Bertulazzi is a 74-year-old former member of Italy's Red Brigades who escaped from house arrest in Buenos Aires on Tuesday 10 November 2026, days before he was due to be extradited to Italy to serve a 27-year prison sentence. Argentine police say he used a harness to climb down from the balcony of his fifth-floor flat in the San Telmo district, after tampering with his electronic ankle monitor so that it kept sending readings even after he had taken it off. A nationwide manhunt is now under way, and the Argentine government has offered a reward of 20 million pesos for information leading to his capture.

How did Leonardo Bertulazzi escape from house arrest?

According to Argentine media reports, Bertulazzi climbed down from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires on Tuesday afternoon, using a harness, and landed on a vacant lot next to the building. A private security camera filmed part of his escape on foot. His flat was on Calle Defensa, one of the oldest streets in the San Telmo neighbourhood, and the building he left behind is a tall, ornate apartment block of the kind that lines that part of the city centre.

The escape was not noticed at once because Bertulazzi had tampered with his electronic ankle monitor. The tag, which was monitored by the Argentine security ministry, records the wearer's body temperature, pulse, humidity and movements. Official sources told the newspaper Clarin that he had used a device to fake those readings so that the monitor kept transmitting normally after he had prised it open and taken it off. When officers eventually entered the fifth-floor apartment, Bertulazzi was gone and the ankle monitor was still there.

This was not his first attempt to interfere with the tag. According to Infobae, he had tried to remove the ankle monitor about two weeks earlier, setting off its alarm, and the Federal Police had then asked for him to be moved from house arrest to a prison. That request had not been acted on by the time he escaped. Police were cautious when they entered the flat because of Bertulazzi's past with explosives: given his history as a bomb-maker for the Red Brigades, explosives experts were called in case the discarded ankle monitor had been rigged to detonate. It had not been.

Federal Judge Maria Servini, who is handling the extradition case, ordered his immediate capture. Argentina's General Directorate of Criminal Intelligence issued a red alert for the urgent search and arrest of the former militant, and the government offered a reward of 20 million pesos for information leading to him. As of Wednesday 11 November, he had not been found, and the manhunt was continuing across Argentina.

Who is Leonardo Bertulazzi?

Bertulazzi was a member of the Genoa column of the Red Brigades, the far-left Marxist guerrilla group that carried out kidnappings, assassinations and bombings in Italy during the 1970s and 1980s. He was sentenced in absentia in Italy to 27 years in prison for his role in the kidnapping of Pietro Costa, a naval engineer from a wealthy Genoese shipowning family. Costa was seized on the street by members of the Red Brigades' Genoa section in 1977 and held for 81 days before his family paid a large ransom and he was freed.

After the kidnapping, Bertulazzi spent decades as a fugitive. He was first arrested in Argentina in 2002, after crossing into the country from neighbouring Chile on a false passport. He was released a few months later, and in 2004 he was granted refugee status in Argentina, which blocked his extradition. For the next two decades he lived freely in the South American country, largely out of public view, while Italy continued to seek his return.

That position changed when Javier Milei became president of Argentina. Bertulazzi's refugee status was revoked, and he was arrested again in Buenos Aires in August 2024, at the age of 72. Argentina's Supreme Court confirmed his extradition in July 2025. He had been kept under house arrest rather than held in prison because of his age and his health, with the electronic ankle monitor as the main control on his movements. Italian media reported that his extradition to Italy had become imminent after his last appeal was rejected, which is the context in which he chose to escape.

What were the Red Brigades?

The Red Brigades, known in Italian as the Brigate Rosse, were a far-left militant organisation founded in Italy in 1970. They emerged from the radical student and workers' movements of the late 1960s and set out to overthrow the Italian state through armed struggle, modelling themselves in part on Latin American guerrilla movements. During the period Italians call the Years of Lead, the group kidnapped and killed politicians, magistrates, police officers, journalists and businessmen, and carried out bombings and armed robberies to fund its activities.

The group's most notorious crime was the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, the former Italian prime minister, in 1978. Moro was seized in Rome after his bodyguards were killed, held for 55 days while the group demanded the release of imprisoned members, and then shot dead when the government refused to negotiate. The murder shocked Italy and marked the high point of the Red Brigades' campaign. The group was gradually dismantled by police action and by members turning against it in the 1980s, although splinter groups continued to carry out attacks into the following decades.

Bertulazzi belonged to the Genoa column, one of the group's regional branches. The 1977 kidnapping of Pietro Costa was one of its fund-raising operations: the ransom paid for Costa's release helped finance the organisation. Bertulazzi's 27-year sentence was handed down in his absence, because he had already fled Italy by the time the courts dealt with the case.

Why was he in Argentina, and why was he facing extradition?

Argentina has a long history as a refuge for Europeans fleeing prosecution, and Bertulazzi was one of several former militants who settled there. After his first arrest in Buenos Aires in 2002, his claim for refugee status succeeded in 2004, and that status protected him from extradition for twenty years. Italian attempts to have other former Red Brigades members extradited from France also failed in the courts during the same period, which made Argentina's decision to revoke his protection all the more significant.

The turning point came with the change of government in Buenos Aires. President Javier Milei, who took office in December 2023, revoked Bertulazzi's refugee status, and he was arrested again in August 2024. His lawyers appealed to Argentina's national commission for refugees and through the courts, but the extradition was upheld at every stage, culminating in the Supreme Court's confirmation in July 2025. From that point, his return to Italy was a matter of timing rather than of law, and he was held under house arrest while the final arrangements were made.

House arrest is a common arrangement in Argentina for elderly or unwell defendants awaiting extradition, and Bertulazzi, at 74, qualified on both grounds. The conditions included the electronic ankle monitor, which was supposed to alert the authorities at once if he left the flat or tampered with the device. The fact that he was able to defeat the monitor, and that an earlier attempt to remove it had already set off an alarm, will now be central to the questions asked about how the escape was allowed to happen.

What happens next?

The immediate priority for the Argentine authorities is to find Bertulazzi. The red alert issued by the criminal intelligence directorate puts every police force in the country on notice, and the 20 million peso reward is intended to encourage the public to come forward with information. His age, his lack of a valid passport, and the publicity around the escape all make it harder for him to leave Argentina unnoticed, but he has already shown, over a fugitive career lasting nearly half a century, that he knows how to disappear.

If he is recaptured, his extradition to Italy is expected to proceed quickly, because his legal challenges have already been exhausted and the Supreme Court has confirmed the order. On arrival in Italy he would be taken into custody to serve the 27-year sentence imposed in his absence for the kidnapping of Pietro Costa. Any decision about where he is held, and under what conditions, would then be for the Italian prison authorities, taking account of his age and health.

The escape is also an embarrassment for the Argentine government, which had presented his re-arrest in 2024 as a sign of a tougher approach to fugitives. The questions now are practical ones: how a 74-year-old man under electronic monitoring was able to abseil from a fifth-floor balcony in the middle of Buenos Aires, why the warning from his earlier attempt to remove the tag did not lead to his transfer to prison, and how long it took for anyone to realise he was gone.

Frequently asked questions

How old is Leonardo Bertulazzi? He is 74 years old. He was 72 when he was re-arrested in Buenos Aires in August 2024.

How did he escape from house arrest? He used a harness to climb down from the balcony of his fifth-floor flat in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires on Tuesday 10 November 2026, landing on a vacant lot next to the building. He had tampered with his electronic ankle monitor so that it kept sending readings after he removed it.

What was Leonardo Bertulazzi convicted of? He was sentenced in absentia in Italy to 27 years in prison for his role in the 1977 kidnapping of the naval engineer Pietro Costa by the Genoa column of the Red Brigades. Costa was held for 81 days before a ransom was paid.

Has Leonardo Bertulazzi been caught? No. As of Wednesday 11 November 2026 he remained at large, with a nationwide manhunt under way in Argentina and a reward of 20 million pesos offered for information leading to his capture.

Why was he under house arrest instead of in prison? He was held under house arrest because of his age and his health, with an electronic ankle monitor tracking his temperature, pulse, humidity and movements. He was awaiting extradition to Italy after Argentina's Supreme Court confirmed the order in July 2025.