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Mafia Boss Betrayed By Facebook

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hate-when-that-happens dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of Italy's 100 most-wanted criminals, a vicious mafia boss who had been on the run for months, was betrayed by his passion for social networking and flushed out thanks to Facebook. Using the name 'Scarface' from the gangster movie starring Al Pacino, Pasquale Manfredi, 33, a boss of the the ferocious 'Ndrangheta mafia organization from the Calabria region in southern Italy, had logged on to his Facebook account so often that police were able to trace the signal from his Internet key and find his hideout.' Seems the Mafia Wars Facebook phenomenon goes deeper than it seemed!"

9 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Eh by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Funny

    I dunno I can't seem to bring myself to take a mafia boss who uses facebook seriously. I can only imagine how seriously people will take him when he's in jail. Getting caught by using facebook can't be good for your criminal reputation.

    1. Re:Eh by justthisdude · · Score: 5, Funny
      Facebook should cater more to their "made" clientele: Along with relationship status, there should be a "legal status" pulldown menu:

      - Totally legit
      - On the lamb
      - Locked up
      - It's complicated

      --
      "I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
    2. Re:Eh by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Funny

      I heard the guy was actually turned in by his Facebook friends. They finally got tired of reading all the annoying news about his FarmVille game.

  2. Trace the signal from his internet key? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    WTH is that supposed to mean?

    1. Re:Trace the signal from his internet key? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Technically speaking, it works like this. There is a guy in a brightly lit room with about 30-40 computer screens of various sizes. He sees the bad guy log in to facebook and runs a trace on the internet key by typing furiously. A few of the screens show maps of the world with lines tracing the signal as it gets closer to the mafia boss's hideout. If he doesn't log out before the connect the dots reach him, he gets busted. Make sense now?

    2. Re:Trace the signal from his internet key? by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 5, Funny

      And of course he is running a custom OS where you can type in complete phrases that it will understand like "find the bad man's internet key" and 1.5 seconds later it has a GPS location, pictures of the bad man, all his recent activity, etc. all on the screen. It could also find any DNA or fingerprint info from it's imaginary worldwide database that contains this info everybody in the world and can also return the results in a matter of seconds.

      Seriously though, if law enforcement had any of the programs and databases they seem to have on every cop show on television, I am pretty sure the unsolved crime rate would be below 2%.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    3. Re:Trace the signal from his internet key? by Exitar · · Score: 5, Informative

      A wireless USB stick, known in Italy as "chiavetta internet"/internet key.

    4. Re:Trace the signal from his internet key? by guzziguy · · Score: 5, Funny

      One of the investigators sat down at a terminal and said, "Hey... this is UNIX! I know this!" Then, he used the UNIX GUI to fly around the interwebs until he found a box with the name "scarface" on it. He clicked on that box, and it brought up this guys address, phone number, names of his family members, and favorite color.

      It was pretty simple, actually. The investigator learned how to do it by watching Jurassic Park over and over.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion