A fugitive wanted for one of New York’s most chilling unsolved murders – the killing of an Iranian-Jewish man – has been captured and returned to the city after more than eight years on the run.

Michel Patrick Desalles, now 54, has been extradited from the island nation of Mauritius and charged with the brutal 2017 murder of his boss, Omid Gholian, inside a Tribeca jewelry store.

Prosecutors say Desalles viciously beat Gholian hy”d, 43, inside the back room of World of Gold N Diamond at Church and Duane Streets, before tightening two zip ties around his neck, leaving him to die in a pool of blood. Hours after the savage assault, Desalles boarded a flight at JFK Airport and vanished halfway around the world.

Gholian’s disappearance initially puzzled his loved ones. When his brother couldn’t reach him and found the store suspiciously locked on one of the busiest retail days of the year, he filed a missing person report. With help from police, a family member unlocked the shop—only to discover a gruesome scene. Gholian’s lifeless body lay in the back, with clear signs of trauma: a gash to the head, facial bruising, and the horrifying marks of zip-tie strangulation. EMTs pronounced him dead at the scene. The city medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by “compression of the neck.”

Investigators immediately suspected foul play, but the killer had already disappeared without a trace.

Thanks to a coordinated international manhunt involving the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, the U.S. Marshals Service, and Mauritian authorities, Desalles was finally apprehended and extradited back to New York. He was arraigned this week and ordered held without bail on charges of second-degree murder.

Authorities have not yet revealed a motive for the crime, but the return of Desalles to U.S. soil marks the end of a years-long mystery—and the beginning of long-overdue justice.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)