Matteo Messina Denaro

Italy's most-wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro is caught and arrested while receiving treatment in a private hospital in Sicily.

He has been sentenced in absentia to a life term for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. - Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia in 1992 for his role in the murders of two anti-mafia prosecutors Italian police have arrested Matteo Messina Denaro — the country's most-wanted mafia boss, who had been on the run for three decades — swooping on a private hospital in the Sicilian capital Palermo where he had gone for treatment.

Italy's No. 1 fugitive has been arrested at a private clinic in Palermo after 30 years on the run.

Once Provenzano was in police hands, the hunt focused on Messina Denaro, but despite numerous reported sightings of the boss, he managed to elude arrest, until Monday. But while he had a weakness for women, Messina Denaro could be cruel, strangling a woman while she was pregnant, according to Italian media. Messina Denaro went into hiding in summer of that same year, as the Italian state stiffened its crackdown on the Sicilian crime syndicate following the murders of Falcone and Borsellino. Messina Denaro, who had a power base in the port city of Trapani, in western Sicily, was considered Sicily's Cosa Nostra top boss even while a fugitive. He is set to be imprisoned for two bombings in Sicily in 1992 that murdered top anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, Falcone's wife and several of their bodyguards. A pair of Carabinieri officers, each holding an arm, walked him down the front steps of the upscale clinic and led him to a waiting black van on a grey morning.

Italian anti-mafia police caught fugitive Sicilian godfather Matteo Messina Denaro on Monday, ending a 30-year manhunt for Italy's most wanted mobster.

Italian anti-mafia police caught fugitive Sicilian godfather Matteo Messina Denaro on Monday, ending a 30-year manhunt for Italy’s most wanted mobster. Italy’s most wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro caught after 30 years on the run Messina Denaro had been number one on Italy’s most-wanted list but the only known photo of him dated back to the early 1990s.

Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the bosses of the Cosa Nostra Mafia in Sicily and Italy's most wanted man, has been arrested by police while being treated in ...

A suspected sighting of him in September 2021 led to a manhunt and hundreds of tips, the prosecutor said. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni tweeted: “A great victory for the state which demonstrates that it does not give up in the face of the Mafia.” “It is a victory for all the police forces that have worked together over these long years to bring the dangerous fugitive to justice,” Italy’s Chief of Police, Lamberto Giannini, said in a statement congratulating the Carabinieri – Italy’s military police – and the Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office.

'Last godfather' was apprehended as he came out of the private health facility on outskirts of Palermo.

Over the years, dozens of people have been arrested in Denaro’s place in cases of mistaken identity. My warmest thanks and those of the entire government go to the police forces … The quest to locate Denaro was complicated by the near-complete absence of recent photographs, with only a few identity photos taken in the late 1980s and early 90s. In 2002, he was convicted and sentenced in absentia to life in prison for having personally killed or ordered the murders of dozens of people. “Health is one of those things that, sooner or later, forces those who want to hide to expose themselves,” Gen Pasquale Angelosanto of the Carabinieri military police told a press conference in Palermo. Nicknamed Diabolik or U Siccu (the skinny one), Denaro was born in Castelvetrano, Sicily, in 1962.

Sicilian mobster who boasted 'I filled a cemetery by myself' managed to stay hidden without going far from home.

Denaro was one of a gang who kept the boy chained up in various locations in western Sicily for two years to put pressure on his father to recant, before he was strangled and his body dissolved in acid. “Today’s arrest is an important step forward, however, it would be a mistake to think that with today’s arrest the fight against the mafia is finished. “He became part of the Corleone group, but he was a very modern boss in some ways,” says Di Girolamo. It’s also important to find out how he was able to remain a fugitive from justice for 30 years, and who was protecting him. “Like the old mafiosi, he sees the mafia as a superior state, involving a select few who are worthy of the honour,” Teresa Principato, a former magistrate and a member of the Direzione Nationale Antimafia (DNA) who was on his trail for decades, said in 2014. “He was never the boss,” says Principato. [invited the wrath of the state](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/22/mafia-godfathers-sicily-palermo-italy) by assassinating two high-profile and widely admired anti-mafia judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in 1992. He didn’t need to build himself a bunker like the heads of the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria. “He was not married, but he had a child with his partner. A series of arrests of people close to him, including his sister Patrizia, raised hopes that the net was closing, but none of them would talk. Hundreds of police had been engaged in the search over the years with no success. Thirteen years later, his sidekick, living like an ascetic, eating cheese and chicory and reading his Bible in a shepherd’s hut near his birthplace, Corleone, was run to ground.

He was the last of three fugitive top-level mafia bosses who had eluded capture, and hundreds of officers over the years had been tasked with tracking him ...

When asked his occupation, he replied “farmer” and added that his brother was a banker and his four sisters homemakers. One of his girlfriends was arrested and convicted of having hidden him for a time. “It was a debt that the Republic owed to the victims of those years.” The Italian Mafia boss who set the record for the longest time on the run was Bernardo Provenzano. In addition to convictions for the killings of prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, he was also found guilty of killing Falcone’s wife and several of their bodyguards. He faces multiple life sentences he is expected to serve in a maximum security prison and under the particularly restrictive conditions reserved for top organised crime bosses.

Citing the clinic's director, Corriere Della Sera reported that Messina Denaro tried unsuccessfully to escape law enforcement, but investigators later said he ...

[Crime](https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/crime), however, has long run in the family. The carabinieri say they found a suspect in good condition, wearing a $38,000 [Franck Muller](https://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/luxury-watches/2) watch. Whatever charges Matteo Messina Denaro faces now that he's under arrest, he has already been sentenced to life in prison. [Cosa Nostra](https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-in/growth-strategies/even-the-mafia-can-teach-us-something/292608) boss and Italy's most wanted man, has been arrested. Matteo Messina Denaro has long been considered one of the Sicilian Mafia's most influential and dangerous members. He became boss of the powerful Mafia family in Trapani, Sicily, after the arrest of his uncle, Salvatore "Toto" Riina, in 1993.

Messina Denaro is accused of being a ruthless assassin whose violence fuelled the bloody reputation of the Cosa Nostra Mafia. “With the people I have killed ...

“We have confirmation of his presence in Brasil, Spain, Britain, Austria,” she told Il Fatto Quotidiano daily at the time. He was once featured on an Italian magazine cover in dark glasses, looking like a rock star, but his list of victims is long and the crimes he is accused of are horrific. Falcone was murdered in a car bombing near Palermo on May 23, 1992. His first run-ins with the law began in 1989 when he took part in a bloody struggle between two clans. Unfortunately, the employee was Messina Denaro’s mistress. As head of the Castelvetrano clan, he was allied with the Corleonesi clan, which was immortalised in the The Godfather films.

Italian police arrested Matteo Messina Denaro when he was identified walking from a clinic to a cafe.

In 2002 he was tried and sentenced to life in jail in absentia. "Messina Denaro committed some of the most violent and cruel crimes Italy can remember," he said. Police said that far from looking like a "destroyed man", he seemed like "a well-groomed man in a good economic condition". After he went into hiding, Cosa Nostra completely changed its attitude, becoming a more silent and almost invisible, submerged organisation," journalist Andrea Purgatori told the BBC. He made to turn back, but spotted more police closing off the street. After 30 years of searching, what had finally led the police to him? Italians have been transfixed by the arrest. On Monday morning, more than 100 members of the armed forces surrounded La Maddalena clinic. For over a decade, police cracked down on anyone suspected of protecting or aiding Messina Denaro. During his time at the top of the Cosa Nostra organised crime syndicate, Messina Denaro oversaw racketeering, illegal waste dumping, money-laundering and drug-trafficking. Investigators zoomed into their lives, narrowing down the search to 10 suspects, then five. Reported sightings placed him everywhere from Venezuela to the Netherlands.

Italian investigators discover designer clothes and expensive shoes inside 'normal' two-storey building.

At the moment of his arrest, he was wearing luxury clothes and a €38,000 (£33,700) watch. In 2002, Denaro was convicted and sentenced in absentia to life in prison for having personally killed or ordered the murders of dozens of people. He was known for wearing expensive suits, a Rolex and Ray-Ban sunglasses. A man who lived on the first floor of the building told journalists he did not know his neighbour was the infamous mafia boss. He was found by the police officers who took him to the prosecutors for questioning. Nicknamed Diabolik or U Siccu (the skinny one), Denaro was born in Castelvetrano, Sicily, in 1962.