Matteo Messina Denaro, who is the boss of Cosa Nostra Mafia in Sicily and Italy’s most wanted man has been arrested by the Italian police.
Denaro who has been said to be on the run since 1993, making him the country’s longest-hiding fugitive was arrested on Monday, January 16, 2023, at the “La Maddalena” hospital in Sicily, where he was being treated for cancer under a false name and bundled into a waiting black minivan. He was wearing a brown fur-lined jacket, glasses, and a brown and white woolly hat.
He is alleged to be a boss of the notorious Cosa Nostra Mafia and he was tried and sentenced to life in jail in absentia in 2002 over numerous murders.
More than 100 members of the armed forces were involved in his arrest.
His most recent life sentence came in 2020 for fatal bombings in Milan, Florence, and Rome in the late 1990s, and for the murder and torture of the 11-year-old son of an enemy who gave evidence against the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni travelled to Sicily to congratulate police chiefs after the arrest.
“We have not won the war, we have not defeated the mafia but this battle was a key battle to win, and it is a heavy blow to organised crime,” she said.
Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia said the police had received intel which it followed through leading to Denaro’s arrest.
Messina Denaro comes from the town of Castelvetrano near Trapani in western Sicily and is the son of a mafia boss.
He was notable for driving expensive cars and his taste for wearing finely tailored suits and Rolex watches before going into hiding.
Images on social media showed locals applauding and shaking hands with police in balaclavas as the minivan carrying Messina Denaro was driven away from the suburban hospital to a secret location.
Despite the euphoria, Italy still faces a struggle to rein in organised crime groups whose tentacles stretch far and wide.