Google Maps helps Italian police capture a mafia fugitive in Spain

(CNN) – Italian police captured one of the mafia’s main fugitives who had been on the run for nearly 20 years thanks to the help of the Google Maps app, an investigator told Reuters on Wednesday.

After a two-year investigation, Gioacchino Gammino, 61, was located in Galapagar, Spain, where he lived under a false name. The city is close to the capital, Madrid.

A Street View image from Google Maps showing a man who looked like him in front of a greengrocer was key to launching a deeper investigation.

“The still helped us to confirm the investigation that we were conducting in a traditional way,” said Nicola Altiero, deputy director of the Italian anti-mafia police unit (DAY).

Gammino, a member of a Sicilian mobster group called Stidda, had escaped from Rebibbia prison in Rome in 2002 and in 2003 had been sentenced to life in prison for a murder committed several years earlier.

Altiero said that Gammino is currently in custody in Spain and they hope to bring him back to Italy in late February. Reuters was unable to locate a representative for Gammino for comment.