A drug baron who fled the US six years ago to escape serious criminal charges has been arrested in England after a bounty hunter tracked him down on Facebook.
Emmanuel Ganpot, 36, was convicted in 2003 of hiring two "mules" to transport more than $45,000 worth of drugs into Florida, British newspaper The Sun reports.
Ganpot faced up to 15 years behind bars but fled to England shortly before he was due to be sentenced.
There he was taken in by his French mother, who lived not far from London, and acquired a British passport under the fake name "Neo Masuro".
Ganpot's new friends came to know him as "Manny", an apparently charming American who led a busy life as a bartender, football coach and drummer. They even understood he worked with disabled children.
But the deception ended when bounty hunter Bill Burgess began trawling the internet and found ubiquitous references to a man called "Neo" among Ganpot's former acquaintances.
Burgess, an ex-special forces soldier commissioned by Florida prosecutors, eventually saw on Facebook a clear shot of "Neo" blowing a kiss at the camera and knew he had found his man.
The bounty hunter went on to find Ganpot had also posted pictures of himself relaxing on a Spanish beach.
British police arrested the fugitive and extradited him to Florida, where he now faces up to 105 years behind bars on drugs and law evasion charges.
"It hasn't sunk in — nobody had a clue Neo wasn't Neo," said friend Daniel McCarthy back in Britain.
Another said: "Everyone liked him, it just doesn't add up. It's incredible."
Front page
Local News
RSS Feed