He had "disappeared into thin air" for some time, a fugitive since the Italian Justice had sentenced him to 24 years for murder.

Now, however, he has been identified and arrested , thanks to the international police cooperation carried out by the SCIP, of the Central Direction of the Criminal Police of the Department of Public Security, on the basis of a provision issued by the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri of Milan.

This is Ilir Paja, a 49-year-old Albanian . And in Tirana, Albania, he was tracked down by the police, in front of a barber's salon.

Paja - also wanted by the German police for having committed a murder in Germany - was notorious not only for his crimes, but also for the daring escapes from the various prisons where he was detained. And, precisely because of his ability to "suddenly vanish", he was nicknamed UFO.

In 2007, for example, he had disappeared on the A1 motorway, during an ambulance transport from one prison to another: he had simulated an illness to bring the head escort near the stretcher on which he was tied and, after having taken him to head , he had managed to break down the ambulance door, and then go into hiding in the woods, barefoot and with a fractured arm.

"The violent behavior of the fugitive, on the fringes of psychopathy , - the investigators underline - highlighted an inhuman ruthlessness in the circle of Romanian prostitutes that he managed and against whom he enjoyed exploding gunshots missing them by a whisker".

(Unioneonline / lf)