Italy catches fugitive Mafia boss Messina Denaro

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

A ruthless operator who once reportedly boasted he could “fill a cemetery” with his victims, the 60-year-old Messina Denaro was a leading figure in Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in the Godfather movies. The mobster was nabbed “inside a health facility in Palermo, where he had gone for therapeutic treatment”, special operations commander Pasquale Angelosanto said in a police statement.

He had been undergoing periodic treatment for colon cancer under a false name, and did not resist arrest, ANSA news agency said. Criminology expert Anna Sergi at the University of Essex said Messina Denaro was “the last one, the most resilient one, the ´purest´ Sicilian mafioso remaining”.

“The secrets he is said to keep fuel conspiracies around mafia-state agreements in the 1990s,” she told AFP. “He is the essence of the great historical power of Cosa Nostra. The myths around his period on the run are part of the reason why the Mafia myth endures.”

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.

Police images showed him being escorted by officers to a waiting vehicle, wearing a cream hat, sunglasses and a brown leather jacket with a cream sheepskin lining.

Before that, the only known photo of him dated back to the early 1990s. He had been on the run since 1993. His first words to police were “I´m Matteo Messina Denaro”, ANSA reported. Locals could be seen cheering and applauding in the rain as he was driven away.