Antonio Strangio, a mechanic nicknamed ‘TT’ due to his love of Audi cars, had been under house arrest in the town of San Luca, Calabria, when he fled on December 28th 2012.

Investigators tracked him down in Moers, a city near Duisburg, after gathering details of his whereabouts through wiretapped conversations with relatives in San Luca.

The 38-year-old faces a 19-month sentence for the fictitious registration of assets. It also emerged that he acted as a frontman for Pelle-Vottari, a clan of the 'Ndrangheta syndicate hailing from San Luca whose long-term feud with a rival clan, Nirta-Strangio, culminated with six people being killed in a mafia showdown outside a pizzeria in otherwise peaceful Duisburg in 2007. The massacre thrust 'Ndrangheta, deemed Italy's most powerful mafia organization, into the global spotlight.

German police said Strangio was alone and unarmed at the time of his arrest. He is expected to be extradited to Italy within 90 days.

Santo Vottari, a notorious Calabrian mobster wanted over the Duisburg killings, was captured in a tiny hideout in a flat in Benestare, close to Reggio-Calabria, earlier this year. He was one of 31 people sentenced to prison terms in 2009 in connection with the murders.