Google Maps played a key role in nabbing a Mafia member in Spain last month, Italian investigators revealed on Wednesday.
Police noticed a man matching the Mafia member's Gioacchino Gammino description in an image taken from Google Maps in the Spanish town of Galapagar.
A member of DIA, the country's anti-Mafia police unit, said that the person in question was at a fruit and vegetable stand.
Investigators learned that the same man had owned an Italian restaurant in the same city. And after checking the restaurant's website, they found a picture of a cook who matched the Mafia member's description, according to a report in La Repubblica. That information helped confirm the person's presence in the town near Madrid.
Investigators had spent two years following leads bringing them to the town. Spanish authorities moved in and arrested him on 17 December.
20 years on the run
A member of the Stidda Mafia organization, he had been on the run for 20 years, wanted on suspicion of Mafia membership, murder and drug dealing.
He had been jailed before, but escaped in 2002 during filming work in the high-security Rebibbia prison outside Rome.
The man was reportedly surprised to be tracked down in Spain. The police spokesperson said that he had had no telephone contact with his family for a decade.
