​The case of Nicholas Rossi, the American who faked his death to avoid prosecution in the US, has come to an end after making headlines in Scotland, the country where he was hiding, the BBC reports.

Nicholas Rossi Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA Images/Profimedia

Angela Constance, Scotland’s justice minister, confirmed on Thursday that she had signed off on a request last week to extradite Rossi to the United States after a court ruled in early August that there were no legal obstacles to the move.

US prosecutors say he is Nicholas Rossi, who fled the United States and tried to fake his death from cancer to avoid detection and prosecution. The US Justice Department also says he used a number of aliases to avoid detection.

Instead, the man claims to be an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight and that he is the victim of a case of mistaken identity, and that he has never been to the United States.

Judge Norman Macfadyen, who presided over the case last month, ruled that his extradition would be compatible with British human rights law.

“I must therefore refer the case of wanted man Nicholas Rossi to the Scottish Ministers for a decision on whether or not to extradite him,” McFadden said in his ruling.

Rossi continued to deny his true identity even after the court case ended.

How an American was discovered in Scotland

Rossi was arrested by Police Scotland in November 2021 after being admitted to hospital in Glasgow with COVID-19.

Police and medical personnel concluded he was wanted after comparing his tattoos to Interpol photos.

Judge McFadden called the man “as dishonest and cunning as he is evasive and manipulative.” The case was brought before a judge after another court ruled last year that Utah authorities were indeed looking for the man.

Although the exact moment when Rossi fled to Scotland is unknown, in January 2020 he announced that he had cancer, and a month later, several American newspapers reported his death, citing statements purported to be from his family members and an obituary.

But the ad immediately raised suspicions about his troubles with the law, as the FBI launched an investigation to find out if he was really dead.

In addition to the criminal charges against him in Utah, authorities in Rhode Island issued a warrant for his arrest because he was not registered as a sex offender in the state’s mandatory database.