Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Mafia Boss Caught By Google Street Car - The Gioacchino Gammino story

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Gioacchino Gammino, a convicted murderer and member of the Sicilian mafia group Stidda, escaped from Rome's Rebibbia prison in 2002 and evaded capture for nearly 20 years. During his time as a fugitive, he adopted the alias "Manuel" and established a fruit and vegetable shop, El Huerto de Manu, in Galapagar, Spain. His whereabouts were uncovered in late 2021 when Italian authorities, utilizing Google Street View, identified him conversing outside his shop, which led to his arrest.

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But what if you worked your way into the mafia unalived a bunch of people and then got caught by a Google streetcar? This is wild. Okay, so this guy, his name is Gamino. And Gamino, he's in his 40s, he's from Italy, and Gaminos also kind of a hard ass. He's the crime boss of this mafia clan in Sicily. And he's caught up in a feud with a no one. Another mafia in the area, so he's doing all kinds of illegal stuff.

Like sometimes, blam, blam, he's gotta take a few guys out, because that's what you gotta do when you're up in that mob shit. And like at one point, he's allegedly involved in murdering an anti-mafia judge, which they do by placing a bomb in the guy's car and kaboom. No more judge. So yeah, Gamino's hardcore. He doesn't play around. And because he lives this crazy mob life, that also means he's in danger of either getting unalived,

getting busted. And one day in 1998, Gamino is hiding out in Barcelona and it finally happens. Bam, he gets busted. And I believe this is his mugshot. And so he gets shipped back to Italy so that he can go to trial, he gets found guilty and they throw him in an Italian prison. And so Gaminos there for a few years, serving his time, lying low. But here's the thing with that. Camino doesn't really like prison all that much. Like, it's not for him. So then, in 2000, something kind of crazy happens. An Italian film production company decides to shoot a feature film and this movie is set in a prison. So they need a real prison to film it.

And so this correctional facility that Gamino's in, I guess they decide to rent out their place to this production company. So then this big film crew comes to the prison and they set up all their equipment and they got all these actors and these extras and they start filming this movie there. And so suddenly all these random people are just floating around all the buildings and the whole prison gets pretty chaotic. And I guess one of the prisoners starts thinking, you know, with all this chaos going on, it feels like it's the perfect time to escape. And so boom, this dude suddenly starts trying to scale the walls. So then pow, the guards hit the alarms and the alarms are all going off and they all

rush to the wall to try and stop this one guy from escaping and this creates a ton of calamity. And Gimino's watching all this and he's thinking, hey, maybe I could could escape. See, here's the thing about prisons in Italy. In the U.S., most prisoners wear like standard orange jumpsuits. But in Italy, in most of Europe, prisoners actually wear their own civilian clothing, like within reason. I don't think they're allowed to just show up in like a thong or something, but they wear their own clothes. And so Gamino, low-key, slips in with all the movie extras and film crew. And because there's this prison break going on, the prison staff go to the film crew and they're like, all right, for your own safety, you all need to get the hell out.

until we can fix this issue with the guy trying to scale the walls. And so then the guards usher all the civilians out of the prison, and they unknowingly usher Gamino out with them. It's so stupid, it's almost genius. Regardless, now he's finally a free man. But he knows he needs to get the hell out of there and probably get the hell out of Italy altogether. So he flees.

He flees Italy, and he makes his way over to Spain. And there, over the next few years, he starts making a new life for himself. away from everyone he once knew, so that no one will ever find him or figure out that he's wanted ex-Mafia boss. And so he finds a little town right outside of Madrid where he can live and he changes his name. He cuts off all contact with his family and everyone he used to know back in Italy. He gets a job in a restaurant as a cook. He eventually meets a nice woman in Spain and he gets married.

And then even more years go by. And he opens his own restaurant, like an Italian restaurant where he specializes in pizza and society. Cillian food, because you know, he's Italian. And when that restaurant fails, he opens another little business, a fruit and vegetable shop called El Huerto de Manu. Or Manuel's Garden. Manuel is what he changed his name to when he fled to Spain. Regardless, things are going great for him, and he's living like a pretty normal life.

Meanwhile, back in Italy, it's like 2014 at this point. And the Italian feds are still looking for him. In fact, Gamino is of the top 100 most wanted to. people in Italy. But like, who knows if they'll ever find him? Until. It's now 2018, and two decades have passed since this all started. And Camino, he's almost 60 now. And one day, he's standing outside his fruit and vegetable shop and he's chatting with another guy. And that's when one of those Google Street View cars drives by. One of the ones with the little cameras on top. And Camino either doesn't notice or he doesn't care. Because at this point, like,

Who cares if he gets his picture taken? He's been on the run for 20 years. No one has been smart enough to catch him yet. In fact, this same year, randomly, Gamino gets into an argument with a guy, a city official. And later, he spots that same guy in a local store buying a lottery ticket. And Gimino's still so mad that he walks up to the dude and pout, pow, he slaps the shit out of him. And this is actual surveillance footage of it happening. I obviously can't show you the actual violence because, you know, I'm tired of my video is getting removed.

But you get the point. Anyway, afterwards, Gamino threatens to unalive the guy before he ultimately walks away. I guess he's still got that mafia in him. Now, it's insane to me that he even takes this risk, knowing that he's still technically a wanted man and that if he ever gets found out, he'll go to prison for life. Regardless, Gamino does get in trouble for this. I guess the other guy presses charges and they go to trial and Gamino ends up getting a small fine. But here's the crazy thing, though. After all that, the Spanish government still doesn't figure out who he is, a former mob guy who's wanted back in Italy.

Okay, but then a few years later, in 2022, the Italian feds get a little tip. A tip that Gamino is still alive and that he's now living somewhere in Spain. And so now the feds just need to figure out exactly where. And so they keep researching and they keep digging and they hear that he might be connected to a little fruit vegetable shop in a small town outside of Madrid called El Huerto de Manu. And so they looked this place up and that is when they see it. On Google Street View, standing outside the shop is Gamino. He's right there on the right in the Bay shirt.

And so the Italian feds are like, no way. Is that actually the guy? But they can't be sure. Because you know, as you can see from the image, Google Street View blurs your face out. Here's the thing, though, the phone number to the shop is printed right on the sign above Gamino. Like literally, his phone number is right above him. And so the feds, they get this number and they Google it, and that number is the same number for a restaurant in the same area that closed down a few years before,

an Italian restaurant that specializes in pizza and Sicilian food. The same restaurant Gamino used to own, and his picture is still up on. on the Facebook page. And the Italian feds see this and they're like, Mamma mea, that's the guy we've been looking for. And so they hit up Spanish police and they organized this whole raid and then they swoop in and bam, they arrest him.

And I don't have a mugshot of him, but here is some footage of him being escorted by police. An Italian mafia boss who's been on the run for decades has been arrested after he was spotted on Google Maps in Spain. And so then he's extradited back to Italy where he's sent back to prison to finish serving his sentence for life.