This handout picture released on Monday by the Ufficio Stampa Comando Generale Carabinieri shows Italy’s top wanted mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, right, being escorted in a vehicle by carabinieri after he was arrested in his native Sicily after 30 years on the run. AFP
New Delhi: One of Italy’s most feared mobsters Matteo Messina Denaro was on Monday arrested in a daring raid in Sicily after 30 years on the run.
Sixty-year-old Denaro, who fronted up the notorious Sicilian “Cosa Nostra” group, was arrested when he was visiting a private medical clinic in Sicily’s largest city Palermo, said police.
A former trigger man who once reportedly boasted he could “fill a cemetery” with his victims, the Denaro is believed to have become the “boss of bosses” following the death of Salvatore “The Beast” Riina in November 2022.
Because of his savage crimes, Denaro is believed to have given himself the nickname “The Devil”.
Astonishing video shows crowds applauding and cheering the Carabinieri police in the streets of Palermo following his arrest, according to The Sun report.
A frail-looking Denaro has also been pictured in the back of a police car alongside an armed cop being led away, added the report.
Denaro’s last verified sighting was in August 1993, while he was on vacation with two companions in Tuscany’s Forte dei Marmi.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Messina Denaro was the “most significant” mafia boss and his arrest in his native Sicily was a “great victory” for the state in its war against organised crime.
Denaro’s crime record
Denaro had been number one on Italy’s most-wanted list but the only known photo of him dated back to the early 1990s.
His father, Francesco, Don Ciccio, was the mafia boss of Castelvetrano and had a close alliance with the Corleones of Toto Riina, the most-dominant mafia clan of the 1980s and 90s.
Denaro learned how to use a gun at the age of 14 and, aged just 20, he followed his father into the mob, working with the Corleones to crush two rebellious mafia families.
He is believed to be behind the murders of two anti-mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
He is also facing a life sentence for his role in 1993 bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence that killed 10 people the following year.
Denaro’s empire of influence stretched as far as South America, and he was also reportedly the man who decided who should be killed by the mob.
Other acts of horrific savagery allegedly planned by Denaro were carried out on the innocent relatives of rival mobsters.
Denaro is believed to have ordered the hit on Antonella Bonomo, the fiancee of Alcamo mafia boss Vincenzo Milazzo, who had been very critical of the Corleones.
Bonomo, who was three months pregnant at the time, drowned in the killing on 15 July, 1992.
Denaro also authorised the kidnapping and murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 13-year-old son of a mobster who had repented and was preparing to testify against the mafia.
On another occasion, Denaro reportedly murdered a hotel manager who was going after the same woman as him.
With inputs from agencies
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