He is a local celebrity in Milan, famous for appealing to part of public opinion for his image linked to the "myth of the bandit".

Because of this act, he was legally compelled to move into an aunt's house, in via degli Apuli, in the district of Giambellino, in the southern periphery of Milan, practically on the opposite side of the city.

Within a short period, Vallanzasca accumulated a lot of money due to the numerous robberies and thefts carried out by his gang, and began to live an extravagant lifestyle: he took to wearing expensive designer clothes, driving luxury cars and would usually be seen in the company of beautiful women.

His smooth and successful criminal career was interrupted for the first time in 1972 when, 10 days after the robbery of a supermarket, he was arrested by men belonging to the squadra mobile (flying squad) headed by Achille Serra.

Serra later claimed that during the search of his house, Vallanzasca unstrung his gold Rolex wristwatch and put it on a table, telling him, "If you succeed in tying this to me, it is yours".

A few minutes later, warrant officer Oscuri found some shreds of paper in the dustbin, which, once put together, showed a list of salaries of the employees in the supermarket previously robbed.

One of the gang's victims was Emanuela Trapani, the daughter of a local Milanese entrepreneur who was held captive for over a month and a half, from December 1976 to January 1977, and then released upon the payment of a ransom of one billion in Italian currency.

This incident coupled with the killing on 6 February 1977 of two highway patrolmen near Dalmine, Luigi D'Andrea and Renato Barborini,[6] who had stopped the car on which he was travelling to evade capture, caused him to flee Milan for Rome.

On 17 August 1981, Turatello was eventually assassinated at the Badu 'e Carros, the high-security prison in Nuoro, Sardinia, by a Neapolitan Camorrista Pasquale Barra, along with Vincenzo Andraus and Antonino Faro, two Sicilian Mafiosi from Catania, Sicily.

According to Achille Serra, the young man who was in his early twenties had decided to abandon the path of crime and begin a new life in the legitimate world.

Assisted by others, Vallanzasca repeatedly stabbed him in the chest with a knife, committing further atrocities on his mutilated corpse, and finally beheading him.

Sentenced to a harsh prison term, Vallanzasca succeeded in tricking the police officers and managed to escape on 18 July 1987 through a porthole of the ferry which carried him to Asinara, Sardinia.

At the beginning of May 2005, after having received a special three-hour permit to meet his elderly mother, he formalized a request for clemency by sending a letter to the Ministry of Justice, and to the magistrate of surveillance of Pavia.

On 15 July 2007, his mother wrote to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and the minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, requesting clemency for her son.

[11] On 13 June 2014, during the semi-courtship granted by the prison of Bollate, he attempted to unpack and steal underwear and gardening material at a supermarket in Milan and was arrested by the carabinieri for the crime of aggravated improper robbery.