Mafia fugitive tracked down through cooking videos on YouTube

From the frying pan straight into the fire: Biert inadvertently gave himself away on a YouTube channel in which he showed off his Italian cooking skills. — Filepic/Pixabay

ROME: A Mafia fugitive was caught in the Caribbean after appearing on YouTube cooking videos in which he hid his face but inadvertently showed his tattoos, Italian police said on March 29.

Marc Feren Claude Biart, 53, led a quiet life in Boca Chica, in the Dominican Republic, with the local Italian expat community considering him a “foreigner”, police said in a statement.

He was betrayed by a YouTube channel in which he showed off his Italian cooking skills. The videos never showed his face, but the tattoos on his body gave him away, they said.

Biart had been on the run since 2014, when Italian prosecutors ordered his arrest for trafficking in cocaine in the Netherlands on behalf of the Cacciola clan of the ‘Ndrangheta mafia.

Based in Calabria, the region that forms the tip of Italy’s boot, the ‘Ndrangheta is considered one of the world’s most powerful crime syndicates due to its control of most of the cocaine entering Europe.

It has extended its reach across all parts of the world, and it has long surpassed Sicily’s Cosa Nostra as Italy’s biggest mafia organisation. – AFP