The man arrested Friday night at Glasgow airport after an anonymous report is finally not Xavier Dupont Ligonnès.

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The denial of the Scottish police has fallen: the DNA tests are negative. The man arrested Friday at the airport in Glasgow, Scotland, is not Xavier Dupont Ligonnès, contrary to what first information, from fingerprint analysis, hinted.

The infos to remember:

  • The man arrested Friday night is not Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès
  • A first comparison of fingerprints suggested that the man arrested was Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, before the DNA tests deny this track this Saturday
  • The fugitive is therefore always wanted by the police.

What happened Friday night?

The arrest of a man suspected to be Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès took place Friday at the Glasgow Airport in Scotland. According to a source close to the investigation, the arrest was prompted by "an anonymous tip". The man had embarked at the Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris. He had been spotted by the French police, who did not have time to intervene and warned Interpol. He was finally checked on his arrival in Glasgow, where, according to several sources, his fingerprints partially corresponded with those of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès.

Doubts to certainty: it's not him

But Friday night, the public prosecutor of Nantes, Pierre Sennès, already called for "caution". The arrested man traveled with a passport in the name of Guy Joao, with an address in Limay, Yvelines.

On Friday night, the police conducted a search at the address indicated on the passport, without finding anything there. Saturday morning, the first testimonies of the neighbors were formal: impossible that Guy Joao is Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. One of them, Jacques, said Saturday morning at the microphone of Europe 1: "It's been thirty years we know each other! We've been to her wedding in Scotland, it's absurd! Even with surgery aesthetic is not possible.

Also in the morning, BFM TV revealed that the fingerprints of the man arrested actually corresponded only "very partially" to those of Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. Of the thirteen reconnaissance points needed, only five corresponded.

Saturday late morning, a source close to the investigation was part of "doubts" about the identity of the arrested man. A little later, it was also learned that the fingerprints found in the house raided Limay did not match that of Xavier Dupont Ligonnès.

And towards mid-day, the verdict, revealed by Europe 1, fell: the DNA tests are negative, the arrested man is indeed Guy Joao, and not Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès.

What do we know about Guy Joao, the man arrested in Glasgow?

According to the last elements of the investigation, Guy Joao is a septuagenarian, retired, former employee of Renault Flins, married to a Scotswoman. He lost his passport in 2014.

Eight years of research and mysteries

For eight years, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès is actively sought after. On several occasions, reports were received by the investigators, whose thousands of written reports failed to say whether he was dead or alive, whether he had been able to organize his escape or if he had committed suicide. This central character of one of the most mysterious criminal puzzles of recent decades was last seen in April 2011: on April 14, he was filmed by the camera of a cash machine, and on the 15th, he had He left a hotel with a case on his back that could contain a rifle.

>> READ ALSO - Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès: listen to the story of the case, by Christophe Hondelatte

Six days later, the bodies of his wife and four children were discovered, buried under the terrace of their house in Nantes. Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès, 48, and her four children, Arthur, 21, Thomas, 18, Anne, 16, and Benoît, 13, were killed at 22 Long Rifle, presumably two weeks earlier, between 3 and on the 5th of April, at least two bullets in the head. With six days behind the father, the investigators had then pulled the thread of his schedule, without breaking the riddle. Despite an international arrest warrant issued against him, he has still not been found.