Fugitive Busted After Making Cop His Facebook Friend

Maxi Sopo was living the dream of a fugitive abroad, kicking back on the beaches of Cancun by day, partying in the clubs by night. Then he did two things that are never a good idea when you're on the run from authorities: He started posting Facebook updates about how much fun he was having — and added a former Justice Department official to his list of friends. Investigators initially could find no trace of him on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and they were unable to pin down his exact location in Mexico. But several months later, Secret Service agent Seth Reeg checked Facebook again — and up popped Maxi Sopo. His photo showed him wearing a black jacket decorated with a white lion as he stood in front of a party backdrop featuring logos of BMW and Courvoisier cognac. Although Sopo's profile was set to private, his list of friends was not, and Scoville -the Assistant US Attorney who helped find Sopo - started combing through it. He was surprised to see that one friend listed an affiliation with the Justice Department and sent him a message requesting a phone call. "We figured this was a person we could probably trust to keep our inquiry discreet," Scoville said. The former official told Scoville he had met Sopo in Cancun's nightclubs a few times, but did not really know him and had no idea he was a fugitive. The official learned where Sopo was living and passed that information back to Scoville, who provided it to Mexican authorities.link