France’s most wanted man arrested in Scotland, 8 years after disappearing following the murder of his wife and four children

One of France’s most wanted men has been arrested in Scotland, eight years after disappearing without trace following the murder of his wife and four children.

Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes was subject to an international arrest warrant for the 2011 killings in a mystery that has transfixed France. 

The aristocratic businessman was stopped at Glasgow airport on Friday, October 11th after arriving on a flight from Paris.

Sources confirmed a fingerprint match had been made but one said a DNA analysis was being conducted to be “totally sure” it was him. Another source said Dupont de Ligonnes was travelling on a stolen French passport and had likely spent part of his time on the run in Britain.

The 58-year-old is suspected of shooting his family dead and burying them under the terrace of their elegant townhouse in the western city of Nantes. Their bodies were found three weeks after the killings, during which time Dupont de Ligonnes reportedly told his teenage children’s school he had been transferred to a job in Australia.

He is said to have told friends he was a US secret agent who was being taken into a witness protection programme. French prosecutors have said he killed all five of his victims in a “methodical execution”, shooting them each twice in the head at close range with a weapon fitted with a silencer.