Italian Mafia boss Arrested After 30 Years on the Run

Italy Police arrested country’s most-wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro who has been on the run for 30 years.

Messina Denaro was reportedly captured in Sicily on Monday when he was visiting the clinic under a fake name for a course of chemotherapy.

Messina Denaro 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 involvement in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome, and Milan the following year, which killed 10 people.

The mafia boss also oversaw racketeering, illegal waste dumping, money laundering, and drug trafficking for the powerful Cosa Nostra organized crime syndicate, reported the BBC.

Although he had been a fugitive since 1993, Messina Denaro was thought to have still been issuing orders to his subordinates from various secret locations. Prosecutors said he was a boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia.

For years, Messina Denaro had been a symbol of the state’s inability to reach the upper echelons of organized crime syndicates.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni welcomed his arrest as a “great victory for the state”.

“The prevention [of] and fight against mafia crime … will continue to be an absolute priority of this government,” Meloni said in a tweet.

The arrest Monday came 30 years after the capture of convicted “boss of bosses” Salvatore “Toto” Riina, in a Palermo apartment after 23 years on the run.

News Agencies