A trivial street photograph led to the arrest of one of Italy’s most wanted gangsters. Tracked down by police for twenty years, a former Italian mafia boss has been arrested in Galapagar, Spain, thanks to a snapshot taken on Google Street View.
The target of an international arrest warrant since 2014, 61-year-old Gioacchino Gammino was spotted in a photo from Google’s navigation service in which he can be seen chatting with another man in front of a fruit store and vegetables called “El Huerto de Manu” (meaning “the vegetable garden of Manu”, in French).
It is by making a comparison with another photo taken in a nearby restaurant, called “la Cocina de Manu” (translating as “the kitchen of Manu”) and on which the Mafiosi had been formally identified dressed in a costume of Chief, that the police had been snapped up.
Doubt quickly turned into certainty when officers recognized in both photos a Gammino scar on the left side of his chin.
He had changed his name and his life
Arrested on December 17, 2021, Gioacchino Gammino had an atypical career, as evidenced by the investigation carried out by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Over the years, the man had completely changed his life: in Spain he had changed his name to Manuel and found a job as a chef and owner of a fruit and vegetable store.
“There have been many previous and long inquiries which have taken us to Spain. We were on the right track, Google Maps and Street View helping to confirm our investigations ”, explained the prosecutor of Parma Francesco Lo Voi, in an interview granted to the British daily newspaper The Guardian.
A prison break in 2002
The full story of the accused is incredible. Belonging to a mafia clan in the city of Agrigento, Sicily, Gioacchino Gammino was first arrested in 1984 by anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, who ultimately died in a car bomb in 1992.
Targeted by the police for crimes committed in connection with his activity, he was arrested and then imprisoned in Barcelona in 1998. Transferred to Rome where he was serving a life sentence, Gioacchino Gammino managed to escape from prison de Rebibia during the shooting of a film in the penitentiary in 2002 to return to Spain where he had lived ever since.