Fugitive Mafia 'prison killer' captured because his pizza was so good

After spending 16 years on the run from Italian authorities, a convicted mafia member has been captured, and it's all thanks to his delicious recipes.

Edgardo Greco was arrested in Saint-Étienne, France on Thursday after Interpol tracked him down in an operation part of their I-CAN project.

Greco, 63, has ties to the notorious Italian mafia organisation ‘Ndrangheta and was wanted to serve a life sentence for the murders of two brothers in 1991.

According to reports, Greco had been living as a pizza chef in France and once ran an Italian restaurant under the name “Paolo Dimitrio.”

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Apparently, he was so confident he would not get caught that he appeared in local newspapers boasting about his restaurant, Caffe Rossini Ristorante, calling it, "Italian cuisine prepared only with fresh and homemade."

Nicola Gratteri head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Catanzaro, Calabria

The restaurant was closed in November 2021.

“No matter how hard fugitives try to slip into a quiet life abroad, they cannot evade justice forever,” Italy’s interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said in a statement.

“Dedicated officers around the world will always ensure that justice is served.”

Edgardo GrecoCARABINIERI COSENZA

Greco was described as a “dangerous fugitive" he earned the nickname "prison killer" in the 1980s.

According to Italian authorities, Greco was responsible for the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo during the “mafia war” in the 1990s. The pair were beaten to death with a metal bar in a fish shop in Calabria. Their bodies were never found.

He is also accused of the attempted murder of Emiliano Mosciaro.

Meanwhile, he posed for photo ops and bragged about his culinary skills in a July 2021 article for Le Progres which ultimately helped the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Catanzaro, Calabria close-in on him.

“His passion for cooking is one of the elements that betrayed him,” an Italian Carabinieri police official said.

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