Facebook Traps Mafia Boss in Italy

One of Italy's most-wanted criminals has been tracked down and arrested, thanks to the most unlikely of police tools — Facebook.

After evading the Italian authorities for years, 33-year-old Pasquale Manfredi was finally found in a tiny basement flat in the small Italian town of Isola Capo Rizzuto in Calabria. According to ABC News, the mafia boss had been using Facebook to keep in touch with his associates but like many of us, his online habit had become a regular occurrence. Police officers were able to surround his apartment after tracing the signal from his Internet key and the hitman, known as 'Scarface' on the social networking site, was finally arrested.

Angelo Morabito, Crotone's police chief said that when they caught Manfredi, the leading mafia figure congratulated him: "'You are the boss of the invisibles,' he told me," in reference to the way his team of 50 officers had ambushed him so successfully. On whether it was common for the mafia to keep in touch via Facebook, the police chief said that they "need to keep in touch either by passing notes, using cell phones or, in these days, via computer."

Accused of 20 crimes, including mafia association, illegal trade of military weapons, drugs trafficking and murder, Manfredi is one of the country's 100 most-wanted criminals as a boss of the ferocious 'Ndrangheta mafia organization. "He is without a shadow of doubt the most dangerous criminal of the province of Crotone," according to Marabito.

Looks like the future of Facebook just got even brighter although criminals be warned — we can see you!

Photo by luc legay via Flickr.