Arrested after 16 years on the run, Italian Mafia member worked as pizza cook

Edgardo Greco, 63, allegedly belongs to the notorious organisation Nrangheta, a powerful mafia organization in Calabria, southern Italy.

Interpol said he was arrested Thursday in the French town of Saint-Etienne, where he had run an Italian restaurant with a nickname, according to French prosecutors.

Described as a dangerous “fugitive”, Greco was wanted in Italy to serve a life sentence for the murder of Stephano and Giuseppe Bartholomew, Interpol said in a statement.

He was also charged with attempting to kill Emiliano Mosciro “as part of a mafia war between the Pino Sena and Perna Pranno gangs that marked the start of the 1990s”.

The Bartolomeo brothers were beaten to death with iron bars at a fish warehouse in January 1991, Italian police said. Their bodies were never found and are believed to have been dissolved in acid.

In Saint-Etienne in June 2021, Greco became the owner of an Italian restaurant called Capfee Rossini Ristorante, leading him until November 2021, French prosecutors said.

According to the documents, he used the name Paolo Dimitrio and also worked at other Italian restaurants in the city.

Greco also worked evenings at a restaurant pizza under his alleged name, according to Italian media.

Following his arrest in the early hours of the morning, he appeared before an investigative judge in Lyons, who officially informed him of Italy's arrest warrant, prosecutors said. Then he was placed in custody.

Ndangheta was considered Italy's largest and most powerful mob group, operating worldwide and with strong links to the cocaine trade that traveled to Europe from South America.

The Greek arrest came a week after Italian police said they had dismantled a Nandagheta mafia ring that dominated a large area of Southern Calabria and secuestro assets exceeding 250m euros, reports Guardian, broadcast Klankosova.tv.

56 people, many already in prison, were put under criminal investigation for a series of crimes, including mafia-related conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping, bribery and arms possession, police and prosecutors said.

Last month, Italian police arrested one of Cosa Nostra's most notorious mob bosses, Matteo Messina Denaro, who has been on the run for 30 years.

The 60-year-old was arrested after visiting a health clinic that was being treated in the Sicilian capital, Palermo.