One of the Cosa Nostra Mafia’s top leaders in Sicily and the most sought man in Italy, Matteo Messina Denaro, was apprehended by police while receiving treatment in a private medical facility in Palermo, according to prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia on Monday.

According to de Lucia, he had been on the run since 1993 and was one of the most sought men in Europe.

Lamberto Giannini, Italy’s police commissioner, congratulated the Carabinieri, Italy’s military police, and the Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office and stated, “It is a success for all the police services who have fought together over these many years to bring the dangerous fugitive to justice.”

“A fantastic triumph for the state, which illustrates that it does not give up in the face of the Mafia,” wrote Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in a tweet.

Guido Crosetto, the defense minister, referred to the arrest as “a manifestation of a state that prevails against the Mafia.”

While Meloni acknowledged that Italy had not yet triumphed over the Mafia, he said that this was a “fight that was crucial to win.” Meloni was speaking outside the prosecutor’s office.
She stated, “It’s a day we can rejoice and teach our kids that the Mafia can be stopped.

A criminal life

Given repeated life sentences in absentia for his numerous crimes, most notably in 1992 for his involvement in the separate murders of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, Messina Denaro is believed to have orchestrated dozens of murders related to the Mafia.

For the deadly bombs in Milan, Florence, and Rome in the late 1990s as well as the murder and torture of an enemy’s 11-year-old son who testified against the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, he was given his most recent life term in 2020.

He was the longest-hiding fugitive of Cosa Notra, wanted for nearly 30 years.

Following an early-morning operation by more than 100 specialist agents with the anti-Mafia Carabinieri, Messina Denaro was apprehended approximately 10 a.m. local time. Private Maddalena clinic, where he was detained, specializes in plastic surgery and other elective procedures. What medical care Messina Denaro was receiving is unknown.

He is being kept in a “secret location,” according to the Carabinieri press office, which spoke to CNN on Monday.

Anti-Mafia security authorities have been closing in on Messina Denaro’s network in recent years. Between 2009 and 2010, they made arrests and seized over €3 billion ($3.25 billion) in assets from friends, family, and allies who were suspected to be supporting his life in hiding.

Messina Denaro, also known as Diabolik, is regarded as one of Bernardo Provenzano’s successors. Bernardo Provenzano was apprehended in April 2006 as he was hiding out in a farmhouse outside of Corleone, Sicily. Messina Denaro, who was born on April 26, 1962, in Sicily to a well-known Mafia figure, considered crime to be a family affair. His brother Salvatore Messina Denaro was one of those detained during the crackdown in 2009–2010 but he refused to provide information about his location.

His sister, Patrizia Messina Denaro, was convicted of being a Mafia member in 2013 and given a 14-year prison sentence, which she is currently serving.

Period of concealing

Messina Denaro had various connections with women while he was hiding, including his engagement to Franca Alagna, with whom he had a daughter named Lorenza. He also had a high-profile relationship with an Austrian hotel employee who boasted that they went on holiday to Greece even though he was wanted by Europol.

There have been several unsuccessful attempts to apprehend him over the years.

Numerous police personnel were involved in the surveillance of Messina Denaro in May 2011 at a farmhouse close to his hometown of Castelvetrano, but they were unable to apprehend him. Later, his DNA was discovered there.

The arrest of a British man at a restaurant in The Hague in 2021 after the anti-Mafia police mistakenly recognized him as Messina Denaro added to the embarrassment of the police.