The armed and dangerous 46-year-old was overpowered by plainclothes police officers near the small town of Schermbeck near Düsseldorf around 10 am in the morning. They caught up with him while he was cycling down regional road B58 on a silver bike and rammed him into a ditch. No one was injured in the operation.

Michalski’s arrest ended an intense nationwide manhunt after he and his 50-year-old co-conspirator Michael Heckhoff broke out jail last Thursday. They hijacked two taxis, a 19-year-old student in her car, and a married couple in their escape efforts. None of their victims were injured, despite the two being described as brutally dangerous and erratic criminals.

Interior Minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia said Tuesday’s arrest was a “brilliant success by the police” and thanked them for their service.

Both men had been serving life sentences without chance of parole at the Aachen prison. Heckhoff, who was captured on Sunday in Mülheim an der Ruhr, had been convicted of kidnapping and attempted murder. Michalski was serving out his sentence for the 1993 murder of a fellow robbery accomplice.

He narrowly escaped police capture on Monday by disappearing into a high-rise building, according to police.

On Sunday, police also arrested a prison guard on suspicion he helped in the escape of the two violent inmates from the maximum-security prison. The 40-year-old guard is thought to have helped the men get through locked areas and providing them with loaded prison service weapons as well as ammunition, according to statement by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.