Rome - Italian police arrested Thursday the boss of a mafia family which, with another criminal clan, is involved in a long-standing, bloody feud, including the so-called 2007 "Duisburg Massacre" in Germany, officials said.

The 46-year-old Antonio Pelle was captured in what police described as a specially-built underground bunker hideout on a farm near the southern town of Locri in the Calabria region.

Pelle, the head of the Pelle-Vottari family of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, had been on the run since August 2007 in the aftermath of the killing that month of six Italians outside a restaurant in Duisburg.

Authorities, who believe the shootings were ordered by the rival Nirta-Strangio family, began hunting down members of both clans.

Dozens of alleged 'Ndrangheta members have since been arrested, but none of them has been charged with pulling the trigger in Duisburg. (dpa)