An Italian mafia boss was arrested in Brazil on Tuesday after having spent more than 30 years on the run.
Sky News reported that Pasquale Scotti, 56, escaped from a hospital near Naples in 1984. A leader of the New Camorra criminal organization, he was convicted of more than 20 murders in absentia in 2005.
Scotti was rediscovered in Brazil going by the name of Francisco de Castro Visconti. He was apprehended in a joint operation by Brazil's federal police and Interpol as he was taking his two daughters, ages 13 and 15, to school in the city of Recife.
The former Mafioso had undergone plastic surgery to help conceal his identity, however fingerprints identified him definitively.
He told police that his wife of 18 years nor children knew of his past identity or deeds.
Scotti is engaged in a slew of local businesses, including a real-estate brokerage and a fireworks factory. Those companies are now being investigated, with a focus on possible money-laundering schemes.
The New Camorra dominated Naples and the surrounding region in the early 1980s, and is estimated to have had 7,000 members at its peak. It specialized in drug and cigarette smuggling, as well as construction projects in the wake of the 1980 Campania earthquake.
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