A mafia hitman who had escaped for 16 years is arrested as a pizza craftsman in France

A mafia hit­man who has been on the run for 16 years was arrest­ed Thurs­day in France where he worked as a piz­za chef.

Edgar­do Gre­co, 63, was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing two men in the ear­ly 1990s after ties to the noto­ri­ous Ital­ian crim­i­nal group Ndrangheta, author­i­ties said. Arrest­ed by French police in the city of Saint-Etienne.

He was sen­tenced to life in prison for the mur­der of broth­ers Ste­fano and Giuseppe Bar­tolomeo in 1991 and is described as a dan­ger­ous fugi­tive. Ital­ian police said they were beat­en to death with met­al rods at a fish­mon­ger in Cal­abria. “Their bod­ies were extin­guished and nev­er found again,” police said.

Gre­co has also been charged with attempt­ed mur­der in a sep­a­rate case.

Accord­ing to Ital­ian news agency ANSA, Gre­co dis­guised his iden­ti­ty and worked as a piz­za chef at an Ital­ian restau­rant in France. Ital­ian police have released a pho­to of Gre­co in a white chef’s coat in what is believed to be the restau­ran­t’s kitchen.

Inter­pol, the inter­na­tion­al police agency that coor­di­nat­ed the case with the French and Ital­ian police author­i­ties, said Gre­co’s crimes were linked to the Pino Sen­na and Per­na Plano orga­nized crime syn­di­cates in the Cosen­za region of south­ern Italy in the ear­ly 1990s. announced that it was relat­ed to the Mafia War.

He was held respon­si­ble for the deaths of two peo­ple in the so-called Maxi tri­al, which pros­e­cut­ed and con­vict­ed hun­dreds of gang­sters between 1986 and 1992. Police said in 2006 they had “evad­ed” a pre­tri­al deten­tion order relat­ed to that trial.

Gre­co, who escaped in Octo­ber 2006, was issued a Euro­pean arrest war­rant by the Catan­zaro pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor’s office in south­ern Italy.

French police, with the help of Ital­ian col­leagues, arrest­ed Edgar­do Gre­co in Saint-Eti­enne, France, accord­ing to a state­ment from Interpol.

Thurs­day’s arrest comes two weeks after Ital­ian police arrest­ed Mafia boss Mat­teo Messi­na Denaro.

“No mat­ter how much a fugi­tive tries to live a peace­ful life abroad, he or she can­not escape jus­tice for­ev­er. Mat­teo Piante­dosi, Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or of Italy, said: ‘Ded­i­cat­ed inves­ti­ga­tors around the world will always seek jus­tice.’ I assure you,” he said.

“The arrest of Edgar­do Gre­co brings one of Italy’s worst crim­i­nals to jus­tice and is once again a tes­ta­ment to the com­pe­tence and ded­i­ca­tion of our coun­try’s police, who have now act­ed in con­cert with the French author­i­ties.” Stated.

The oper­a­tion was part of Inter­pol’s ‘Project I‑CAN’, launched in 2020 with Ital­ian fund­ing and tar­get­ing the crim­i­nal group ‘Ndrangheta. Inter­pol is said to have helped arrest dozens of fugi­tives around the world.

Ndrangheta has long been a major con­cern of the Ital­ian author­i­ties. Regard­ed as Italy’s most dan­ger­ous and pow­er­ful crim­i­nal gang, it has glob­al ties and strong ties to the traf­fick­ing of South Amer­i­can cocaine to Europe.

In 2021, about 350 alleged mem­bers of “Ndrangheta” appeared in court in a class tri­al in Cal­abria, south­ern Italy.