I'm a Sherlock Holmes fan, and I've started watching the series featuring Jeremy Brett on Netflix. Thus, when I saw this article in Il Corriere, I saw it in Sherlockian terms.The case of the stupid mafioso, or to be quite precise, Watson, the case of the stupid 'ndrangheta boss. One Pasquale Manfredi, who was on the lam, got nabbed due to his affection for Facebook. Being an outlaw, he obviously scoffed at the Facebookian condition of enrolling with your own name. So, being a furbo (sly, cunning) dude, he signed on with the nickname of the Al Pacino character, Scarface, famed coke dealer. This apparently was enough to get the attention of Italian investigators (maybe they have a software program that trolls the social networks looking for famous criminal names.)
This goes to show that Italy is indeed becoming modernized. Just think of the progress since number two Cosa Nostra man Bernardo Provenzano got caught (after 43 years) because of communications involving his need for clean laundry while in hiding. He was using little hand-written messages. Progress marches on, but I bet even Manfredi, being an Italian male, wasn't washing his own underwear.
Speak of the devil (Facebook)- the New York Times has an article today about how much info can be gathered about you from the public domain through social networks. This should be elementary, Watson, but people seem not to realize it. Too late for Manfredi.
