Record catches long-playing Italian fugitive holed up in Venezuela

Roberto Vivaldi, 69, a financier, went on the run in 1997 after he was given a 20-year jail sentence for a series of financial crimes.

Roberto Vivaldi was identified from fingerprints on records sold under a false identity thousands of kilometres from Italy.

A high-flying fraudster who fled Italy and vanished 25 years ago has been tracked down in Venezuela and arrested after undercover police tricked him into posting them his fingerprints on a vinyl LP record.

Roberto Vivaldi, 69, a financier, went on the run in 1997 after he was given a 20-year jail sentence for a series of financial crimes including fraudulent bankruptcy and money laundering.

His name was on Italy’s list of wanted fugitives for years until his case was handed to the flying squad in Prato, near Florence, the town where he was sentenced, to reinvigorate the search.

“We checked the social media accounts of his family, friends and known associates and, using software, found some were in touch with a profile based in Venezuela,” Alessandro Gallo, the squad’s chief investigator, said.

“They were all very careful when communicating with this profile, until an old friend of ­Vivaldi’s sent birthday greetings on a day which did not coincide with the date of birth listed on the profile.”

Police discovered that the person behind the profile was selling old vinyl records online. Officers established a false identity, set up a mailing address and ordered some LPs.

“When the records arrived in Italy we dusted the covers for fingerprints and found what we wanted – some of the prints matched Vivaldi’s,” Mr Gallo said.

The record carrying the ­incriminating prints was a 1960s recording of Garota de Ipanema by its Brazilian composer ­Antonio Carlos Jobim. The song was re-recorded as The Girl from Ipanema by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz.

Vivaldi had been living under an assumed name in Venezuela for 22 years.

“To get Venezuela to arrest him we needed more than prints,” Mr Gallo said.

Posing as the vinyl customer, an officer struck up an online friendship with Vivaldi, inquiring about the records he had to sell and confessing that he had long thought of moving to Venezuela to open a business.

Learning that Vivaldi lived on Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, the officer asked Vivaldi to act as middle man in his purchase of a restaurant on the island.

“When Vivaldi showed up at the restaurant for an appointment he discovered the Venezuelan police were waiting for him,” said Gallo, adding that the fugitive had now been extradited back to Italy to serve out his sentence.

The Times