Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro,
Italy's most wanted man, has been arrested by the Carabinieri
police's ROS unit after 30 years on the run, sources said on
Monday.
He was arrested inside a private clinic in Palermo, the sources
said.
The 60-year-old, aka Diabollik, had been on the run since 1993.
The mobster, who got his nickname from the Italian comic book
character Diabolik, a masked superthief anti-hero, was seen by
some experts as the boss of bosses within the Mafia after the
deaths of Bernardo 'The Tractor' Provenzano in 2016 and
Salvatore 'The Beast' Riina in 2017, although other experts said
he was not at the very summit of Mafia power, without being able
to say who occupies that post, possibly because it is vacant.
Giovanni Falcon'e assassination was ordered by then boss of
bosses Riina with the agreement of former co-boss Provenzano.
In 2020, Messina Denaro was also convicted of complicity in
greenlighting the 1992 bombings that killed Falcone and his
friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino two months later.
The bombs, which also killed Falcone 's wife and members of both
prosecutors' security details, sparked a strong reaction from
the State.
Reportedly idolised by Cosa Nostra's younger troops because of
his ruthlessness and playboy-like charisma, Messina Denaro
sealed a reputation for brutality by murdering a rival Trapani
boss and strangling his three-months-pregnant girlfriend
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