Alessandro Marocco

Alessandro Marocco, (1839/1841-?), nicknamed Maroucq, was an Italian and Egyptian illegalist anarchist. He is best known for his central role in the birth and formation of illegalism, belonging not only to one of the first groups of this nature, the Intransigents of London and Paris, but also being suspected by the French police authorities of being at the head of a worldwide 'steering committee' of anarchists composed of Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta. This police interpretation is erroneous, but Marocco nonetheless seems to have played a fundamental role in the first illegalist networks in Western Europe.

Born in Egypt, Marocco moved to France in the second half of the 1880s, joining the anarchist movement and the Intransigents group there. He left the country after the Mirandola stabbing, where some group members like Vittorio Pini and Luigi Parmeggiani stabbed an Italian socialist deputy, to settle in London, where he opened a umbrella shop. This shop was noted as serving to fence and resell stolen goods by illegalist gangs on the European continent, and Marocco appears to have been involved in a number of burglaries: he was also associated with a large number of illegalists such as Henry, Pini, Parmeggiani, Schouppe, and Ortiz.