Italy – Investigators discover fleeting Mafioso on Google Maps

Italian investigators tracked down a Sicilian mafia boss before his arrest in December, thanks in part to Google’s internet map service. The investigators had discovered him in a picture from the small Spanish town of Galapagar, which showed him in front of a fruit and vegetable stand, as a spokesman for the anti-Mafia police Dia said on Wednesday when asked. After two years of investigative work, they suspected him to be in the town near Madrid. The Spanish authorities took action on December 17th.

There was a restaurant not far from the store that offered Sicilian cuisine as a highlight – a note for the officials. According to the newspaper “La Repubblica”, the restaurant posted a photo of the chef on social media. From a scar on his chin, the investigators recognized that it was the wanted man. This finally enabled them to identify the pixelated person on the Google Street View image.

The Mafioso had previously been on the run for almost 20 years and was wanted for mafia association, murder and drug trafficking. A life sentence awaits him in Italy. He belonged to the Sicilian Mafia Stidda, a counter-organization to the better known Cosa Nostra. The judiciary had already put the boss behind bars for a while. In 2002, however, he fled the notorious maximum security prison Rebibbia in Rome while filming.

That the police finally found him in Spain probably surprised him. According to the police spokesman, he said he had not spoken to his family on the phone for ten years.