France arrests Italian mafia killer after 16 years on run

Saint-étienne: A convicted Italian killer, believed to belong to one of the country’s most powerful mafia organisations, was arrested in France after 16 years on the run, Interpol said.

Edgardo Greco, 63, is suspected of belonging to the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful mafia organisation in Calabria, southern Italy.

Interpol said he was arrested in the French city of Saint-etienne, where he had at one point run an Italian restaurant under an alias, according to French prosecutors.

He is wanted in Italy to serve a life sentence for the murders of Stefano and Giuseppe Bartolomeo, said Interpol.

He is also accused there of the attempted murder of Emiliano Mosciaro “as part of a mafia war between the Pino Sena and Perna Pranno gangs that marked the early 1990s”.

The Bartolomeo brothers were beaten to death with iron bars in a fish warehouse, Italian police said.

In Saint-etienne, Greco in June 2021 became the owner of an Italian restaurant called Caffe Rossini Ristorante, running it until November 2021, prosecutors said.

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

Greco’s arrest came with help for Italy and France from the “Cooperation against ‘Ndrangheta Project” (I-CAN) run by Interpol, which facilitates police cooperation between its 195 member states.

The ‘Ndrangheta is considered Italy’s most extensive and powerful mafia group, operating worldwide and with strong ties to the trade in cocaine bound for Europe from South America.