A 21-year-old man confessed to killing two prostitutes in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, according to police and prosecutors on Monday.

"He has confessed in the meantime and is now in investigative detention,” said Nuremberg's chief of police Johann Rast.

Senior prosecutor Alfred Huber said the prostitutes were killed after an argument over money. The suspect, identified as Felix R., under the media protocol in Germany, was arrested after police identified him through a cell phone number found on a victim's phone and DNA from the crime scene that matched R.'s DNA.

The first victim had Romanian and Hungarian citizenships and was 22 years old. She was killed on May 24 in Nuremberg. The second victim, a 44-year-old Chinese woman, was killed on June 5. Both victims were found strangled and their hands bound when firefighters responded to apartment fires. It is believed Felix R. attempted to destroy the apartments to cover his tracks.

Felix R. was previously known to police following a domestic abuse situation last year. He was sent to a youth detention center for two weeks following the incident.

kbd/jm (AFP, AP, dpa)