“Today, January 16, the Carabinieri (…) arrested the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro inside a health center in Palermo, where he had gone for clinical therapy,” Carabinieri General Pasquale Angelosanto told the news agency AGI.
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The “godfather” of the mafia was on the list of the world's most wanted criminals as leader of the powerful criminal organization Cosa Nostra, specialized in drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion and money laundering.
The mafia leader's face is almost unknown and is based on computer reconstructions.
Messina Denaro, 60, known for being violent, boasted that he could “fill an entire cemetery” with his victims, including a teenager, son of a repentant mobster, whom he ordered to dissolve in acid.
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Capo of capos
The “capo of capos”, as he was called, replaced Salvatore “La Bestia” Riina, captured in 1993 and who died in November 2017.
The Sicilian mafia leader is also suspected of ordering the 1993 bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence, which killed 10 people just months after Cosa Nostra murdered anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in similar attacks.
His arrest provoked numerous reactions from the Italian political class, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
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“A great victory for the State, which shows that we should not surrender to the mafia,” wrote Meloni.
