Matteo Messina Denaro, fugitive mafia boss, arrested in Sicily

After 30 years on the run, Matteo Messina Denaro, a Sicilian Cosa Nostra boss and Italy’s most wanted man, has been arrested. In the end, his cancer killed him carabinieri found him in the Palermo clinic where he was being treated.

Referring to the director of the clinic, Corriere della Sera reported that Messina Denaro unsuccessfully tried to escape from law enforcement, but investigators later said he did not resist arrest. They even reported that he immediately identified himself as the person they were looking for. The carabinieri say they found a suspect in good condition with a $38,000 Franck Muller watch. Messina Denaro was reportedly named “Andrea Bonafede” and carried identification on that name.

Matteo Messina Denaro has long been regarded as one of the most influential and dangerous members of the Sicilian mafia. He became the boss of the powerful Mafia family in Trapani, Sicily, after the arrest of his uncle, Salvatore “Toto” Riina, in 1993. Denaro’s rule over the family was notable for his brutality and involvement in various criminal activities, including drug trafficking. , extortion and murder.

Denaro had been on the run since 1993. In a statement, Italy’s police chief, Lamberto Giannini, said the arrest of the Mafia don was “a victory for all police forces that have worked together over these long years to bring the dangerous fugitive to justice.” . .”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni tweeted that the arrest was a “major victory for the state, showing that it is not giving up on the mafia”.

CNN reported that Messina Denaro’s nickname was Diabolik – possibly after an Italian cartoon character known as a Batman style anti hero – and he was widely regarded as a successor to Bernardo Provenzano, a capo arrested in 2006 near Corleone, Sicily.

However, crime has long run in the family. His father was a mob boss and his brother and sister are incarcerated for mafia related crimes.

Whatever charges Matteo Messina Denaro faces now that he has been arrested, he has already been sentenced to life in prison. He was convicted in absentia three years ago of participating in the 1992 murder of a pair of anti-mafia prosecutors and bombings that killed 10 the following year.