User:Yngvadottir/Jean-Luc Germani

Jean-Luc Germani (born 18 June 1965) is a former leader of the Corsican mafia, associated with the Brise de Mer gang. Found guilty in connection with the takeover of a mafia-connected Parisian gambling club, the Cercle Wagram, he was France's most wanted fugitive until his arrest in 2014.

Early life and family
Germani was born in Bastia. His sister, Sandra, was married to Richard Casanova, the former head of the Brise de Mer gang, who was killed by rivals within the gang in 2008.

Criminal career and time on the run
Germani began his career in the Corsican mafia in the early 1990s in the South of France. He came to the fore after Casanova's death, participating in the continuing gang civil war and becoming known as a "godfather". He received a series of legal sentences: in 2005 he was sentenced to four years in prison for weapons possession and criminal associations, and in 2009 he was sentenced to prison for involvement in the killing of a cousin of Jean-Jérôme Colonna, another dead former gang leader. He was released from prison in 2010. Although he had been in another gambling hall at the time, he was found guilty of complicity in what was described as an "aggressive takeover" of the Cercle Wagram on 19 January 2011; in October 2013 he lost an appeal and was sentenced to six years in prison and a 100,000€ fine. He is also suspected of involvement in the takeover of another Parisian gambling club the same month, the Eldo club.

Germani's business interests included a project to install gambling machines in the Democratic Republic of Congo in association with Michel Tomi.

Germani was a fugitive for three years after the Wagram affair and became France's most wanted man. The police tried without success to capture him in Africa. He was almost captured by accident on 29 June 2011, at a beach in San-Giuliano. He and an associate were spotted leaving a caravan; Germani attracted suspicion by running, but returned and trained a laser sight on the police. The caravan was found to contain numerous weapons, and when he was identified after the fact, Germani was charged with the offence of threatening the police with a gun. He was ultimately caught, using the alias Filippi, when meeting in the La Défense area west of Paris with Dominique Luciani, whom the police had had under surveillance. Germani had a beard, long hair and glasses, but was recognised from analysis of photographs.