Kidnapper, 74, Escapes House Arrest in Buenos Aires by Abseiling From Fifth Floor Balcony

Leonardo Bertulazzi, 74, escaped house arrest in Buenos Aires by abseiling with a harness from a fifth floor balcony, the BBC reported. He had tampered with his electronic ankle monitor so it kept transmitting body temperature readings after he opened it and left, which delayed the discovery of the escape.

Argentina's General Directorate of Criminal Intelligence has issued a red alert for his urgent search and arrest, LaPresse reported, citing Canal 9 and the Argentine press. A nationwide manhunt is under way. Bertulazzi was serving house arrest at a residence on Calle Defensa in Buenos Aires, with extradition proceedings pending before the court of Judge Maria Romilda Servini.

The monitor that kept reporting a body

The ankle tag registers the wearer's body temperature and movements and is monitored by the Argentine ministry of security. When officers entered the fifth floor apartment in the centre of Buenos Aires, Bertulazzi was gone but the ankle monitor remained. Wary of his past with the Red Brigades and his bomb making skills, police called in explosives experts in case the device had been rigged to detonate, according to Argentine newspaper Clarin, cited by the BBC.

A case from 1977

Bertulazzi was convicted in absentia in Italy for the 1977 kidnapping of naval engineer Pietro Costa, carried out by the Red Brigades, the far left militant group that kidnapped and killed a number of state officials in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s. He had already spent decades as a fugitive before this escape and was awaiting extradition to Italy.

He was first arrested in Argentina in 2002 after entering from Chile on a false passport. He was granted refugee status in 2004 and lived freely in Argentina until his re-arrest in 2024, after President Javier Milei took office and the refugee status was revoked. The extradition case was still pending when he went over the balcony.

The search

The red alert puts every Argentine security force on the same notice: find Bertulazzi and arrest him. His extradition case sits with the First National Federal Criminal and Correctional Court, presided over by Judge Maria Romilda Servini, and it cannot move while he is missing. The escape also raises a plain question for the ministry that monitored him. The tag was meant to report temperature and movement, and it kept reporting temperature from an empty apartment. How long it did so, and when officers were sent to the Calle Defensa residence, are facts the Argentine press reports do not yet give. What is confirmed is the alert, the manhunt, and the empty fifth floor room.