Italy’s Most Wanted Mafia Boss Messina Denaro is Arrested in Sicily After 30 Years

(CTN News) – Matteo Messina Denaro, the most sought mafia leader in Italy, was being treated for cancer on Monday when armed police detained him. He had been on the run since 1993.

Messina Denaro, known by the monikers “Diabolik” and “‘U Siccu” (The Skinny One), had been given a life sentence in absentia for his part in the murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone in 1992, crimes that shocked the country and sparked a crackdown on the Cosa Nostra.

Two carabinieri police officers in uniform took Messina Denaro, 60, out of Palermo’s “La Maddalena” hospital and into a waiting black minivan. He was sporting a brown wool hat, spectacles, and a fur-lined jacket.

Cosa Nostra Mafia Boss Messina Denaro captured after 30 years.

According to judicial authorities, he received cancer treatment, had surgery last year, and then attended several appointments under a fictitious identity.

Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia of Palermo stated, “We had a clue to the inquiry and pursued it through today’s arrest.”

Dismantling Messina Denaro’s network of guardians, according to magistrate Paolo Guido, who oversaw the inquiry into Messina Denaro, was essential in getting the desired outcome after years of effort.

On suspicion of helping a fugitive, a second guy who had driven Messina Denaro to the hospital was detained.

Social media images from when the minivan carrying Messina Denaro was transported from the suburban hospital to a secret destination showed residents cheering and shaking hands with cops in balaclavas.

Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, went to Sicily to congratulate the police authorities on the arrest.

However, she said, “This fight was a critical battle to win, and it represents a significant blow to organized crime. We have not yet won the war, and we have not yet conquered the mafia.”

The judge’s sister, Maria Falcone, expressed that attitude.

Despite their inflated sense of power, she argued, it “proves that Mafiosi are inevitably bound to loss in the struggle with the democratic state.”

In western Sicily, Messina Denaro is the son of a mafia boss from Castelvetrano.

Messina Denaro is the son of a mafia lord and hails from the western Sicilian town of Castelvetrano, which is close to Trapani.

The mafia was still being operated in the territory of Trapani, where he had his regional base, according to police reports from last September.

Before going into hiding, he was well known for his liking in costly automobiles, well-tailored outfits, and Rolex timepieces.

He is facing a life sentence for his involvement in bombings that occurred in Florence, Rome, and Milan in 1993 and left 10 people dead.

Prosecutors also accuse him of being the sole or co-conspirator in several other slayings that occurred in the 1990s.

Prosecutors claim that in 1993, he assisted in planning the abduction of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo to stop his father from testifying against the mafia.

The youngster was imprisoned for two years before being killed by being strangled and having his corpse dissolved in acid.

Almost exactly 30 years have passed since Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the Sicilian Mafia’s most powerful leader of the 20th century, was apprehended by authorities.

He finally passed away in prison in 2017 without violating his vow of quiet.

At the moment of Riina’s arrest, Palermo prosecutor Gian Carlo Caselli commented, “It is an unprecedented occurrence of historic importance.”

Italy still struggles to control organized criminal organizations whose tendrils reach far and wide, notwithstanding the enthusiasm.

According to experts, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, has supplanted Cosa Nostra as the most powerful organized criminal organization in Italy.

According to Federico Varese, professor of criminology at Oxford University, “there is a perception that the Sicilian Mafia is not as powerful as it once was, particularly since the 1990s, they have really been unable to join the drug market, and so they are second-class to the ‘Ndrangheta on that.”

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