The brutal mobster who spent 30 years in hiding
Matteo Messina Denaro once bragged that he could fill a cemetery with all those he’d killed or ordered killed. The ruthless Sicilian Mafia boss not only had a hand in the 1992 murders of two of Italy’s top organized-crime prosecutors but also helped mastermind deadly 1993 bombings at churches and art galleries in Milan, Rome, and Florence that prosecutors called part of a Cosa Nostra plan to wage war against the state. To silence a Mafia turncoat, he ordered the kidnapping, torture, and eventual strangulation of the man’s 12-year-old son, whose body was dissolved in acid, in 1996. Convicted in absentia for these and other killings, Denaro spent 30 years as Italy’s most wanted fugitive before being captured this past January while receiving treatment for colon cancer under a false name. He died in prison in L’Aquila, Italy, where he was serving multiple life sentences. His death, said L’Aquila Mayor Pierluigi Biondi, was “the epilogue of an existence lived without remorse or repentance.”
Denaro was born in Castelvetrano, a rural town in western Sicily where his father was a local crime boss, said The New York Times. “His violent streak began early,” and he first killed while still in his teens. When his father went into hiding, Denaro took “his place at the Cosa Nostra table,” his rise aided by powerful Corleonesi crime family boss Salvatore “Toto” Riina, who treated him like a son. The 1992 murders of prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino “shocked Italy and sparked a crackdown on the Sicilian mob,” said Reuters. Denaro went into hiding a year later, “as a growing number of turncoats started providing details of his role” in the crime family.
Partial to expensive suits and bling, Denaro “apparently kept up his luxurious lifestyle” while hiding in western Sicily, said The Guardian. When caught, he was living near his mother in a town of 11,000, supported by a network of associates and locals who looked the other way. His luck ran out when investigators discovered he was being treated for cancer, tracked him through medical records, and arrested him when he showed up for an appointment with a $30,000 watch on his wrist. In custody at last, Denaro was unapologetic and refused to cooperate with authorities. “You shouldn’t deny prayers to anyone,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said of Denaro’s death. “But I can’t say I’m sorry.”