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Vienna (dpa) - The alleged mastermind of the Ibiza video, which led to the overthrow of the Austrian government in 2019, has been arrested in Berlin.

The public prosecutor's office in Vienna and the Berlin police confirmed the arrest of the German press agency on Friday, which was initially reported by the Austrian newspaper “Die Presse”.

Special forces of the Berlin police attacked the person who had been wanted by a European arrest warrant on Thursday morning in Berlin-Pankow.

In the video, which was recorded in 2017 in a villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza, the later Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache from the right-wing FPÖ had spoken to an alleged Russian oligarch about illegal party donations and large-scale orders, among other things, and appeared prone to corruption.

Strache has always denied all allegations.

The publication of excerpts from the video by “Spiegel” and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in May 2019 led to Strache's resignation from the ÖVP-FPÖ government of Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and later to new elections.

The private detective, who appears in the video as a companion of the decoy and is said to have threaded the trap and bugged the house, went into hiding after the video became known.

According to the press, he is accused of trafficking cocaine in addition to the illegal production of sound and film recordings.

According to the Vienna public prosecutor's office, the German authorities now have to decide whether to initiate surrender proceedings.

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Strache commented on the arrest on Friday with satisfaction.

"I am happy about the arrest of the criminal mastermind of the Ibiza trap (even after such a long time) and now I hope for a quick and complete explanation and also for the discovery of the other accomplices, clients and backers!" He shared on his Facebook Side with.