Armed with the photographs, Italian investigators looped in their French colleagues, and this week, Mr. Greco was arrested as he was beginning a shift. The Interpol project Cooperation Against ’Ndrangheta “facilitated coordination and collaboration with the French authorities, carrying out surveillance of the suspect’s location, enabling his swift arrest,” Interpol said in a statement on Thursday.
“At first, he insisted on his alias,” Colonel Pini said of the arrest. But once the fugitive saw that Italian investigators had traveled from Cosenza for the operation, “he realized it no longer made sense to continue lying, and he said, ‘Yes, it’s me,’” Colonel Pini added.
With the arrest, “we no longer have fugitives to capture from the Cosenza area, for now,” said Col. Agatino Saverio Spoto, the provincial commander in Cosenza of the carabinieri, Italy’s military police. But the search continues for other ’Ndrangheta bosses, above all Pasquale Bonavota, who is “considered to be as dangerous as Matteo Messina Denaro,” he said.
Maurizio Diana, the owner of L’Agora restaurant, where Mr. Greco was arrested, said that he was “shocked” to learn that he had a convicted killer on staff. Mr. Diana, who was born in Sicily but has lived in St.-Étienne for more than 30 years, said that he had hired Mr. Greco about three months ago to work the night shift from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.
A request to have Mr. Greco extradited to Italy will be “initiated in the coming days,” Colonel Spoto said.
Italian officials praised the arrest.
“After Matteo Messina Denaro,” said Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, “yet another arrest of a dangerous fugitive shows how constant and fruitful the work on this front is.”
