Spanish police arrest Albanian prison escapee Toma Taulant in Tarragona
Spanish authorities detained 42-year-old Toma Taulant in Tarragona after he escaped four European prisons, placing him in custody pending extradition to Italy.
Arrest in Catalonia
Spanish National Police officers detained 42-year-old Albanian national Toma Taulant in the north-eastern city of Tarragona, ending an eight-month international search. Authorities announced the capture on 26 August 2026, following an operation carried out in the Campclar neighbourhood. Police statements date the physical arrest to 21 August, while Italian investigative sources report the operation occurred on 23 August. Taulant, sought under a European arrest warrant issued by Italian prosecutors, had lived in Tarragona since January 2026 following his escape from Italian custody. Investigators from the Tarragona economic and fiscal crime unit tracked him for several days before confirming his identity using Europol descriptions, distinctive physical tattoos, and a facial scar.
Confrontation during detention
The arrest took place while Taulant was travelling in a Volkswagen Golf alongside four compatriots. When police intervened to block the vehicle, Taulant resisted officers directly. One passenger attacked the arresting team, injuring two police officers before escaping into a nearby crowd alongside the other occupants of the vehicle. During the subsequent search of the surrounding area, police recovered an abandoned Sig Sauer pistol that a witness reported seeing discarded into nearby bushes. Taulant carried fraudulent identification documents that linked him to a prior police file in Girona for possessing weapons and explosives. Officers also confiscated two 500-euro banknotes suspected of being counterfeit, which authorities forwarded to the Bank of Spain for forensic verification.
The Spanish police described the circumstances of the fugitive's criminal background in an official release.
It sounds like something out of a film, but sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
Four prison escapes
Taulant earned the nickname of the escape wizard across European media after breaking out of four correctional facilities across Italy and Belgium. His first recorded escape occurred in 2009 from a prison in the Umbrian city of Terni. In 2013, he escaped from a detention facility in Parma, Italy, before fleeing a second time that same year from Lantin prison in Belgium. During the Belgian escape, Taulant scaled the perimeter security wall with the assistance of a human pyramid formed by fellow inmates. His most recent breakout took place on 7 December 2025 at the Opera maximum-security prison near Milan, where he sawed through his cell window bars and lowered himself to the ground using knotted bedsheets.
- Escaped from a prison in Terni, Italy
- Escaped from a prison in Parma, Italy
- Escaped from Lantin prison in Belgium using an inmate human pyramid
- Escaped from Opera maximum-security prison in Milan using knotted sheets
- Arrested by Spanish police in Tarragona, Spain
Extradition proceedings
Prior to his December 2025 escape from the Milan facility, Taulant was serving a prison sentence scheduled to run until 2048. His criminal convictions in Italy include charges of violent robbery, theft, and narcotics trafficking. Following his detention in Tarragona, a Spanish judge denied bail and ordered his immediate transfer to the Mas d'Enric penitentiary in Tarragona. Taulant remains held in custody at the Catalan facility while Spanish and Italian judicial authorities finalize bilateral extradition proceedings to return him to Italy to serve out his remaining prison term.
