Italian mob boss caught after 31 years on the run

It took quite a while, but after more than three decades on the run a feared Italian mob boss was arrested in Brazil.

The Guardian reported that the arrest of Pasquale Scotti came on Tuesday as he was taking his children to school in the city of Recife.

“He was approached in the morning when he left home and the arrest was communicated,” said Giovani Santoro, the communications officer of the Pernambuco federal police force. “The officers allowed him to take his kids to school first, followed him, and then arrested him. There was no resistance, it was very discreet.”

Scotti had been living under the alias Francisco de Castro Visconti, however, Brazilian police and INTERPOL confirmed his identity through fingerprints. The 56-year-old told authorities that his family in Brazil did not know of his true identity.

“He told us in a statement that his family was not aware of anything,” Santoro said.

The Huffington Post noted that Scotti was the head of the Camorra, a Naples-based mafia group and had been convicted of more than 25murders. He was apprehended by Italian authorities in 1983 when he was wounded in a shootout, but escaped from the hospital in 1984.

After his arrest, the extradition process began to send him back to Italy.

Image shared via Twitter by The Rio Times

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