The most wanted mobster in Italy, the Sicilian Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive for 30 years and known for being a bloodthirsty godfather, was arrested in Palermo (Sicily, south), as part of a major police operation.
Source: AFP
“Today, January 16, the carabinieri (…) they arrested the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro inside a health facility in Palermo to which he had gone for clinical therapy,” said the general of the carabinieri, Pasquale Angelosanto.
The “godfather” of the mafia was on the list of the most wanted criminals in the world as the leader of the powerful criminal organization Cosa Nostra, specialized in drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion and money laundering.
The face of the mafia leader was hardly known and was based on reconstructions made through computers.
From the first photos released after his arrest, his face is recognizable, although he was wearing a wool hat and winter jacket as well as glasses.
Messina Denaro, 60 years old, known for his extreme evil, boasted that he could “fill a graveyard” with his victims, among them a teenager, son of a repentant mobster, whom he ordered to dissolve in acid.
The criminal replaced Salvatore “The Beast” Riina, captured in 1993 and died in November 2017.
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The Sicilian mafia leader is accused of ordering the 1993 bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence that killed 10 people just months after Cosa Nostra assassinated anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in similar attacks.
– A STATE VICTORY –
His arrest has sparked numerous reactions from the Italian political class, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“A great victory for the State, which shows that we must not surrender to the mafia”, wrote.
The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, whose brother Piersanti, president of the Sicily region, was shot dead by the mafia in the early 1980s, sent “his congratulations” to law enforcement.
“We have detained a dangerous criminal, without violence (…) as is intended in a democratic country,” Maurizio De Lucia, Palermo’s chief prosecutor, said during a press conference, stressing that he did not oppose the capture.
Born in April 1962 near Trapani, in Sicily, He was sentenced in the 1990s in absentia to life in prison for various murders.
His arrest was possible thanks to an impressive operation in which hundreds of specialized police officers and carabineros participated and which ended with applause, according to images released by the local press.
“To capture it, we use the traditional method (…) crossing data, talking with informants, consulting patient data banks. A very hard job for carabineros and police agents”, explained General Teo Luzzi, commander of the Carabineros Arma.
The leader of Cosa Nostra managed to spend years and decades hiding on an island like Sicily, because He did not use cell phones or electronic communications, although he booked the medical examinations that led to his capture under a false name and electronically.
The last godfather of Cosa Nostra, who he was a ruthless and invisible capo, he led a multi-million dollar organization thanks to its ramifications in various sectors, among them the real estate sector, wind energy and online betting.
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Matteo Messina Denaro was detained in a private clinic, where he had been going for a year to receive chemotherapy treatment against cancer.
“He was undoubtedly wearing fancy clothes,” Paolo Guidi, coordinator of the team of anti-mafia judges in the Sicilian capital, stressed to the press.
“He was wearing a prestigious watch, a ‘jack mille’, with a value of about 30-35,000 euros (about the same figure in dollars),” the magistrate stressed.
Since the 2000s, the Italian police have multiplied the arrests and confiscations of mafia assets, a strategy that has borne fruit to break the support network that it has traditionally relied on.
“Now we are going to investigate this ‘mafia bourgeoisie’ that has protected him in all these years,” said prosecutor De Lucia.
