Photo: Collected-
Metropolis Desk-
Italy’s Carabinieri police have arrested Matteo Messina Denaro, the country’s most wanted mafia boss who had been on the run for three decades.
Denaro, detained in the Sicilian capital Palermo, is alleged to be a boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia, reports The Guardian.
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. He also faces a life sentence for his role in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome, and Milan, which killed ten people the following year.
Denaro, nicknamed ‘‘Diabolik’’, was once considered a candidate to be the Sicilian mafia’s boss of bosses, after the deaths of Bernardo Provenzano, in 2016 and Salvatore Riina, in 2017.
The 60-year-old – who once infamously claimed: “I filled a cemetery, all by myself” – seemingly kept up his luxurious lifestyle for some time after going on the run, thanks to several bankrollers.
In August 2021, the Italian public TV broadcaster Rai released a recording dating back to March 1993 in which the voice of Denaro was identified for the first time during a trial in which he was called to testify. After a few weeks, the boss fled and has not been found since.
He was convicted and sentenced in absentia in 2002 to life in jail for having personally killed or ordered the murder of dozens of people.
