Top mafia hitman arrested after 16 years on the run posing as a pizza maker
A man believed to be a part of Italy's most powerful mafia organisation has been discovered working as a pizza chef and arrested after 16 years on the run.
Edgardo Greco, 63, is suspected of belonging to the notorious ’Ndrangheta, which is a hugely powerful mafia organisation in Calabria, southern Italy.
An Interpol — the international police organisation based in Lyon, France — statement said French police, with the help of Italian authorities, arrested the murderer in south-eastern Saint-Etienne, where he had lived since 2014.
At one point the "dangerous fugitive" ran an Italian restaurant under an alias for three years, according to French prosecutors.
Mr Greco was wanted in Italy to serve a life sentence for the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo in 2006 and has been accused of attempted murder in another case.
Man in 30s dies after being stabbed in park sparking police probeThe two murdered brothers were beaten to death with a metal bar in a fish shop in Calabria and Interpol said the killings were "part of a 'mafia war' … that marked the early 1990s" in Italy.
Their bodies were never found and are believed to have been dissolved in acid.
The 'Ndrangheta is one of the world's most powerful cocaine trafficking organisations and is seen as the largest threat among organised crime syndicates.
Mr Greco’s arrest came a week after Italian police said it had dismantled a ’Ndrangheta mafia ring dominating a large area of southern Calabria and seized assets exceeding €250m (£223m).
According to documents seen by Agence France-Presse, Mr Greco used the alias Paolo Dimitrio and also worked in other Italian restaurants in the city.
A Facebook account for his restaurant, Caffe Rossini Ristorante, which now appears to have been closed down, shows local press covered its opening in 2021.
"Paolo Dimitrio opens the restaurant of his dreams," said one headline.
“No matter how hard fugitives try to slip into a quiet life abroad, they cannot evade justice forever. Dedicated officers around the world will always ensure that justice is served", Jürgen Stock, Interpol's Secretary General said.
His arrest is the second of a mafia boss this year. In January, Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested at a private clinic in Palermo, Sicily, after 30 years on the run.
The 60-year-old, who was considered the region's Cosa Nostra top boss even while a fugitive, was captured at the clinic where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed medical condition.
Russian model killed after calling Putin a 'psychopath' was strangled by her exHe had previously been tried in absentia and convicted of dozens of murders, and is now expected to face multiple life sentences.