Convicted Italian mafia killer Edgardo Greco, who had been on the run since 2006, has been caught in France. He had, surprisingly, been hiding in plain sight, working as a pizza chef for at least three years at a popular restaurant in France.
Greco once even appeared in a local newspaper feature, in which he sang praises of his restaurant’s “regional and home-made recipes” such as ravioli, risotto and tagliatelle.
He was captured in Saint-Étienne and is the second high-profile mafia to be arrested by Italian authorities in the past few weeks.
Earlier, Matteo Messina Denaro, who had been on the run for 30 years, was detained from a clinic in Sicily where he had gone for treatment.
Greco and Denaro, both, had committed some terrible crimes in the 1990s and killed several people.
Italy’s Carabinieri military police, in a statement, said that investigators had been tracing Greco’s support network since 2019 and that ultimately led them to Saint-Étienne, where he was captured.
Greco was a part of the ‘Ndrangheta organised crime mob, the roots of which can be traced to Calabria region in Italy’s deep south. The mob is now the most powerful mafia in Italy. They have a wide reach across several countries, especially in Europe and South America.
The 63-year-old had been convicted for murdering two brothers, Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo, during a “mafia war” in the early 1990s. Their bodies were never found and reports suggest that Grec dissolved the remains in acid.
He was also accused of the attempted murder of another man.
How did he manage to hide his identity?
Greco went missing after a trial judge issued an arrest warrant for him in 2006. Around eight years later, he settled in the French city of Saint-Étienne and became a pizzaiolo at an Italian restaurant. He also changed his name to Paolo Dimitrio.
Around the same time, Italian authorities had issued him a life sentence. A European arrest warrant had also been released against him.
The newspaper article he appeared in had him sporting a grey stubble and glasses. It termed Greco an Italian by birth but at heart a local to Saint-Étienne.
(With inputs from agencies)
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