The Cosa Nostra boss was the most wanted criminal in the country
After nearly 30 years on the run, mafia leader Matteo Messina Denaro, Italy’s most wanted criminal, was arrested this Monday (16) in Palermo, Sicily.
At the age of 60, the powerful Cosa Nostra exponent had been on the run since mid-1993 and had been held by the Carabineros in the La Maddalena private clinic, where he had been hospitalized for over a year.
“To the police forces, in particular to the Carabinieri Special Operations Group, to the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office and to the Palermo Prosecutor’s Office for the capture of the most significant exponent of the criminal mafia”, said the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who will travel to Sicily this Monday.
According to her it is a “great victory for the state, which demonstrates that it does not surrender to the mafia”. President Sergio Mattarella, on the other hand, telephoned the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, and the command of the Arma dos Carabineros to congratulate them on the arrest of Messina Denaro.
“A great satisfaction for a historic result in the fight against the mafia”, declared Piantedosi.
The capture took place the day after the 30th anniversary of the arrest of another mafioso, Salvatore “Totò” Riina (1930-2017), bloodthirsty and feared leader of the Cosa Nostra until the early 1990s.
The son of a former Trapani mobster and historic ally of the Corleone clan, led by Riina, Messina Denaro had been on the run since the European summer of 1993, when he sent a letter to his then girlfriend, Angela, after a series of Nostra attacks in Rome, Milan and Florence, saying he would hear from him soon and that they would try to portray him as a “devil”.
Messina Denaro has already been sentenced to life imprisonment for dozens of murders, including that of little Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a mafioso who repented and dissolved in acid after almost two years of captivity. Additionally, he was convicted of involvement in the bombings that killed judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
He was the last major Mafia leader still at large and the searches involved hundreds of law enforcement officers. For many, Messina Denaro has been the “boss of bosses” of Cosa Nostra since the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano (1933-2016), Riina’s successor, in 2006.
During his time on the run, he tried to remove the mafia from the spotlight and invest in new sectors of the economy, such as renewable energy, to launder money obtained from criminal activities.
The mobster has also gained notoriety for his playboy air and cruelty. His nickname was “Diabolik”, in reference to an anti-hero comic thief.
Messina Denaro was taken to a police station in Palermo and then to Boccadifalco airport, from where he will be transferred to a maximum security prison.
He was arrested without offering any resistance, to the applause of the other patients of the La Maddalena clinic.
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Source: Terra
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
