An Italian mafia fugitive on the run for 20 years was caught by police in Spain after being identified on Google.
Gioacchino Gammino was found to be living under a fake name in the town of Galapagar after he was spotted on Google Map’s Street View feature.
The 61-year-old former mafia boss from Sicily had been listed as a dangerous fugitive by Italy’s interior ministry.
According to national media, Gammino was living as a greengrocer and cook in the Spanish town near Madrid. He was arrested after a two-year joint operation between Italian and Spanish authorities.
An image available on Google appears to show a man who looks like Gammino outside a fruit shop in Galapagar in July 2018.
At the time of his arrest in December, Gammino reportedly asked police, “How did you find me? I haven’t even phoned my family for 10 years.”
The fugitive was first detained in Barcelona on charges of murder and drug trafficking in the late 1990s but mysteriously escaped from a Rome prison in 2002. He is expected to be extradited to Italy next month.
In March last year, a member of an Italian mafia gang was also arrested in the Dominican Republic after his tattoos were recognised on a YouTube cooking video.