Laurence Dollimore
BY all appearances, Alex Di Francesco (pictured above) had a childhood that many could only dream of.
As the son of an Italian politician and a lawyer from Madrid, he certainly wasn’t lacking creature comforts while growing up.
But he did develop a taste for a hedonistic and luxury lifestyle, featuring fast cars, tattoos and pricey nightclubs – with Marbella said to be a favourite spot of his.
To help pay for this, he became one of the best safe crackers in Spain and Europe.
His known criminal career began in 2008 with assaults and robberies, and he has been arrested 19 times over the past 16 years.
But he has not been seen since being released from prison in Germany in August 2022.
He had been jailed after stealing €45,000 from a hotel safe, alongside four other men.
His DNA was also found in two jewellery stores that had been previously raided in Frankfurt in Berlin.
Since his release, he has been wanted in Spain for two alleged crimes of burglary committed in Malaga and Cadiz.
Di Francesco is considered somewhat of a legend in the criminal underworld.
He is the son of a former Italian MP and a Spanish lawyer, and is believed to have started his career while working in a pizzeria in Puerta del Sol, Madrid.
Like something out of a Hollywood script, his boss and owner of the shop was a fugitive known as El Mongolo.
A legend himself, he is described as highly intelligent, and is said to have been the first robber to pose as a telephone repairman, allowing him to sneak into companies and deactivate their alarms, before robbing them blind.
El Mongolo, according to reports, taught Di Francesco the tricks of the trade, turning him into a master of so-called oxy cutting.
The complex technique consists of burning and melting the steel and iron of a safe with a blowtorch.
