Mafia godfather on run for 30 years caught in police raid on Sicily clinic
Matteo Messina Denaro, convicted of multiple murders, faces life in jail after arrest at health centre
ITALY’S most wanted man, a mafia godfather who boasted of “filling a cemetery” with his victims, has been arrested after 30 years on the run.
The capture of Matteo Messina Denaro deals a blow to Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia network which has already been eclipsed by other Italian crime syndicates such as the ’Ndrangheta of Calabria.
The 60-year-old fugitive was apprehended by an elite squad of police in a private clinic in Palermo, the regional capital of Sicily, where he had been having treatment for an undisclosed illness, possibly cancer, for more than a year.
He had registered at the medical facility under the false name of Andrea Bonafede.
He did not put up any resistance, police said. Officers wearing bulletproof jackets and black balaclavas punched the air and embraced each other in celebration.
Onlookers cheered as police vehicles with their sirens blaring drove through the streets of Palermo.
Wearing tinted glasses, a leather jacket lined with sheepskin and a woollen hat, Messina Denaro was led from the clinic into a police van by armed officers, some dressed in military fatigues and combat helmets.
It was the first image of him seen by the outside world in three decades.
Convicted of dozens of murders, he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.
He had a 12-year-old boy kidnapped, strangled and dissolved in a vat of acid and he also strangled to death the pregnant girlfriend of a mafia rival.
Believed to be the boss of Cosa Nostra, he had been on the run since 1993, fleeing charges of murder, illegal possession of explosives, robbery and mafia association.
But during the three decades in which he went underground, he was still in active command of Cosa Nostra, issuing orders to his lieutenants from secret locations across Sicily.
He amassed millions of euros – some of it confiscated in police raids – with a business empire built on extortion, drug dealing, money laundering and property investments.
Nicknamed “Diabolik” after a popular comic book character, Messina Denaro communicated with his subordinates through the use of “pizzini” –
‘It would be unlikely for someone like this to remain in Sicily without some sort of protection’
tiny notes typed on wafer-thin paper that were distributed by couriers.
He once bragged he had murdered enough people to “fill a cemetery”.
He was tried and sentenced to life in jail in absentia for the 1992 murders of two anti-mafia prosecutors, Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone.
The murder of the judges, who were regarded as national heroes, shocked Italy. Their funerals were broadcast live on television, parliament declared a national day of mourning and Palermo’s airport was named in their honour.
The assassinations prompted renewed efforts by the Italian authorities to combat Cosa Nostra. They introduced tough anti-mafia laws and made hundreds of arrests.
In the murder of Falcone, a mafia hit-man sat on the side of a hill and activated a huge roadside bomb as the judge and his escort cars drove along a stretch of motorway outside Palermo.
The explosion not only killed the anti-mafia investigator but also his wife and three police protection officers.
Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, hailed the arrest as “a great victory for the state”.
Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister, described the capture as “a historic result in the fight against the mafia”, congratulating police for bringing in “a very dangerous fugitive”.
In the town of Castelvetrano, where Messina Denaro was born in 1962, the mayor was both exultant and relieved.
“It’s the end of a nightmare and the start of a new era for the whole town,” said Enzo Alfano. “People will no longer be able to associate our town with this fugitive from justice.”
There have long been questions about how Messina Denaro could remain at liberty for so long, given that he was believed to operate in a comparatively small area of western Sicily.
In 2015, an Italian prosecutor involved in the hunt for the fugitive said he had likely eluded capture because he was protected “at a very high level”.
Analysts have speculated he may have held secrets of past dealings with the state or been paying off top officials.
Anna Sergi, criminology professor at the University of Essex, said: “It would be very unlikely for someone like this to be able to remain in Sicily without some sort of protection.”
Federico Varese, a professor of criminology at Oxford University, also thought it was “very puzzling” that he could hide for so long. “The man was hiding in plain sight in Palermo,” he said.