Mafia killer pizza maker arrested after 16 years on the

Mafia killer pizza maker arrested after 16 years on the run

Italian Edgardo Greco, a suspected member of powerful Calabrian mafia ‘Ndrangheta, was arrested on Thursday in Saint-Étienne in east-central France after 16 years on the run, Interpol said.

This sixty-year-old, sentenced to life imprisonment, was arrested by the French police thanks to information shared by the Italian Carabinieri between the two partner countries thanks to the I-Can project (Interpol cooperation against the ‘Ndrangheta).

The arrest took place at around 1:40 a.m. on a city street. Edgardo Greco, 63, was brought before a judge from the Attorney General’s Office in Lyon on Thursday afternoon, who officially informed him of the arrest warrant issued by the Italian authorities.

He refused to be handed over to Italian justice and was remanded in custody, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

“Great satisfaction for this important operation, carried out also thanks to the significant synergies developed within the framework of an international collaborative network between police forces. The arrest of dangerous refugees continues,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi commented on the arrest on Twitter.

“The activity of law enforcement agencies is incessant and day by day, in Italy and abroad, tacitly involved in a continuous work to protect the security of citizens,” he added. “The state’s determined action against all forms of organized crime” will be continued “with determination,” he promised.

Edgardo Greco, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter in Italy in 2006, moved to France that same year, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

According to the same source, he became the owner and managing director of pizzeria Caffé Rossini Ristorante from June to November 2021.

According to witnesses and documents consulted by AFP, he called himself Paolo Dimitrio and was employed in several Italian restaurants in Saint-Étienne.

According to the Italian Carabinieri, in 2014 Edgardo Greco was the subject of a European Arrest Warrant from the public prosecutor’s office in Catanzaro (Calabria, southern Italy) after being sentenced to life imprisonment for two murders in January 1991 and one attempted murder in July 1991.

The fugitive, described by Interpol as “dangerous,” escaped into police custody.

He belonged then to the Perna Pranno clan, the most important in the city of Cosenza where he lived.

“He is believed to be partly responsible for the ambush of January 5, 1991 that cost the lives of the brothers Stefano and Giuseppe B., who wanted more autonomy and consideration among the Cosenza clans,” the Italian carabinieri said in a statement.

According to the same source, the victims “were killed with iron bars in a fish camp (…) and their bodies disappeared and were never found”.

This arrest comes a week after a major police operation against the rampaging mafia in Calabria.

Around 300 law enforcement officers participated in this operation and seized assets worth more than 250 million euros.

Hundreds of members of this organization are currently being tried in a maxi-trial.