Google Maps and Street View are extremely practical, but always good for a curious story. There has already been a fake murder there, but also a real corpse. Now, thanks to Street View, a criminal has been caught.
Arrested after 20 years on the run
The map, satellite and car pictures that you get on Maps, Earth and Street View have long been essential companions of our everyday life, but the Google offers are always good for curious and sometimes even tragic stories. But now the Italian newspaper La Repubblica (via Heise ) reports that with the help of Street View it was possible to catch a Mafiosi who had been on the run for around 20 years.
The man, who was considered the leading figure of the Sicilian Mafia Stidda, a competitor of the infamous Cosa Nostra, had been on the run for around ten years. However, investigators managed to arrest him in mid-December. The caught criminal couldn’t believe it and was amazed how he could be found: I haven’t even spoken to my family on the phone for ten years, said Gioacchino Gammino, Stidda boss in the Sicilian city of Agrigento, when he was arrested.
Unpixeled scar on the chin
Because Gammino is said to have felt safe in the small Spanish town of Galapagar, where he worked as a trader and cook. But investigators discovered him, certainly with the great help of Commissioner Zufall, on Google Maps or in a Street View image. The fact that his face was pixelated played little or no role: despite the automatic obscuration by the Google service, a concise scar was visible on the chin of the person searched.
The man who was wanted for murder and drug trafficking, among other things, was behind bars once, but he managed to escape 20 years ago. He is now threatened with life imprisonment.