Edgardo Greco, a former ‘ndrangheta killer arrested in 2024 in Saint-Etienne, France, where he was a pizza chef, died yesterday of cardiac arrest while in cell in France: this is what his lawyer reported to the France Presse agency. Accused of being an enforcer member of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, the 66-year-old from Cosenza was serving prison time in the Corbas penitentiary in France, awaiting extradition to Italy, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment for double murder.
On Sunday, around eight o’clock, his cellmate saw that Greco was suffering from an illness and raised the alarm in the penitentiary. “The cardiac massage carried out first by the guards, then by the emergency services, did not bring him back to life,” specified his lawyer, David Metaxas. The Lyon prosecutor’s office commissioned an autopsy to confirm the causes of death, adds the lawyer, who in recent years has multiplied the appeals to request Greco’s release for health reasons. The former fugitive was “weakened by illness following cancer and has recently had several illnesses”, according to Metaxax. “The only satisfaction that this death inspires in me – he adds – is that he in no way wanted to return to Italy where his life was threatened.”
Last year the justice system across the Alps gave its green light to the extradition of the man from Cosenza convicted of double murder. At the beginning of 2025, the Paris government signed the definitive authorization for him to be taken to Italy to serve his sentence. Considered “dangerous by Interpol”, Greco was stopped at the beginning of 2023 by the French police thanks to information sharing with the Carabinieri in the framework of the I-Can project (Interpol cooperation against the ‘Ndrangheta).
Born on June 7, 1959, Greco spent a long time on the run in Germany, then in France. He worked in several restaurants in Saint-Étienne, where he called himself Paolo Dimitrio, with an interlude between June and November 2021, running his own restaurant. Information confirmed by documents and testimonies collected by the France Presse agency.