Detectives’ suspicions that the man in the image was the fugitive they were seeking were confirmed when they came across a listing for a nearby restaurant called La Cocina de Manu – Manu’s Kitchen.

It had been closed for some time but an image on its Facebook page showed Gammino in chef’s whites. The 60-year-old was recognisable from a distinctive scar on his chin. On the menu of the restaurant was a specialty described as “Cena Siciliana” – Sicilian supper.

He was arrested on December 17 but his capture has only now come to light.

“How did you find me? I haven’t even phoned my family for the last 10 years,” he reportedly asked police when they arrested him.

He will be sent back to an Italian jail where he will serve a life sentence for murder.

Listed by the Italian interior ministry as one of the country’s most wanted fugitives, Gammino had been convicted of a range of crimes, including murder, mafia association and drug trafficking.

He was part of a mafia clan from Agrigento in Sicily which was embroiled in a bloody feud in the 1990s with Cosa Nostra, the island’s main organised crime network.

First arrested in 1984, he was investigated by high-profile anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, who was assassinated by the mob with a huge car bomb in 1992.

Charged with murder in 1995, Gammino went on the run but was arrested in Barcelona three years later.

He managed to escape from a prison in Rome in 2002 and went on the run again, disappearing without trace.

His arrest last month was the culmination of a two-year operation by detectives in Rome and Sicily.