One of the most wanted Italian mafia fugitives was caught in Spain after investigators saw him on Google Street View.
Gioacchino Gammino, 61, is the head of the Stidda mafia gang in Agrigento, Sicily. They were the rivals of the Cosa Nostra.
He was arrested last month in the village of Galapagar, near Madrid, over two decades after he escaped from prison.
Italian police had suspicions that he was hiding in Spain. But the detectives said the image of a man matching Gammino’s description standing outside a fruit shop on the map. It reinforced their suspicions.
The photograph on Street View shows him talking with a man outside Huerto de Manu (Manu’s Grove). It is a shop that had closed down before his arrest and was thought to be owned by him. Street View allows users to explore panoramic views of various streets around the world.
Italian mafia fugitive caught: “How did you find me?”
In 2002, Gammino, who had changed his identity to Manuel, escaped from Rome’s Rebibbia jail.
Gammino received life in prison for murder in his absence a year later.
He had married and worked as a cook in a restaurant called La Cocina de Manu in Spain. He was going by the pseudonym Manu.
The Facebook page of the restaurant went down in 2014. But police discovered a photograph of him dressed in a chef’s uniform.
A scar on the left side of his chin helped investigators identify him.
According to Italian media, Gammino was one of the country’s top 100 most wanted criminals.
Giovanni Falcone, a renowned anti-mafia judge who later died in a bomb attempt, examined him in the 1980s.
Gammino had been on the run in Spain for 19 years. But Italian cops tracked him out on Google Maps after a two-year search.
Italian police arrested him on 17 December with the help of Spanish forces. Gammino reportedly asked officers: “How did you find me? I haven’t even called my family for 10 years!”
Escaped prison in 2002
According to sources, Gammino escaped from prison on June 26, 2002. He took advantage of using disruption in the building generated by an apparently attempted escape by another prisoner. It was during the filming of Ics, directed by Alberto Negrin and starring Vittoria Belvedere.
During the filming, an alarm went out because another prisoner was attempting to escape by climbing over a wall. According to reports, the effort made was to create a distraction while Gammino departed.
Gammino managed to get away from the mass of convicts’ visitors, movie crew members, and extras who were hustling to the exit.
Prison guards reported Gammino missing within hours. Italian media reported on his escape the next day, but he vanished.
Google Maps, according to Nicola Altiero, deputy director of the Italian anti-mafia police unit (DIA), helped authorities “confirm the investigation we were developing in traditional ways.”
“It’s not as if we spend our days wading through Google Maps to find fugitives,” Palermo prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi told The Guardian.
Mr. Altiero stated that Gammino is now in custody in Spain. Also, that he hopes to return to Italy with him by the end of February.