Italian mafia boss caught after Google Maps sighting in Spain (opens in new tab)

This story raises a number of questions.

To find someone who's been on the run for 20 years thanks to a street view picture of some random place based only on the knowledge that the person may be in the country seems extremely improbable.

Granted, the fact that he was snapped by Street View (and then that his picture was on the restaurant's Facebook) is luck, but IMHO, they had intel that he might be in that specific location to start with. If not, they must have some data mining tool and access to raw, un-blurred Street View pics...

> His identity was confirmed when police found a Facebook page of a now-closed restaurant, Cocina de Manu, which was located nearby. It had posted photos of Gammino wearing chef's clothes and he was identified by a scar on his chin.

I wonder if it was pure luck that the specific restaurant had a police officer look at its Facebook page and identify someone aged 20 years since the last likely photo, or if some image detection/data mining was used that then identified the escapee.

> After his arrest, he reportedly told police: "How did you find me? I haven't even called my family for 10 years."

In Liam Neeson’s voice: “you can run, but you can’t hide.”

I suppose we can “Google” just about anything at this point.