They arrested Mateo Messina, the most wanted in Italy - Europe - International

The considerate boss of bosses of Cosa Nostrathe Sicilian mafia (southern Italy), and the country’s most wanted criminal on the run for 30 years, Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested this Monday by the Carabinieri, Italian media reported. The arrest occurred in a private health clinic in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, where he went to receive medical treatment.

The capture of the mobster, with several convictions for the 1993 Cosa Nostra attacks and numerous homicides, comes after the intensification of investigations carried out by Palermo prosecutors Maurizio de Lucia and deputy Paolo Guido, the media added.

Born in Castelvetrano, in the Sicilian province of Trapani, Messina Denaro, who is now 60 years old, must serve several life sentences for the 1993 attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan in which ten people died.

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He is also considered the brain behind the bombs that caused the death of the two anti-mafia magistrates in 1992, Paolo Borsellino and Giovani Falcone, his wife, Francesca Morvillo, and eight escort agents.

In a final sentence, the role of Messina Denaro in the so-called strategy of the Cosa Nostra attacks to put pressure on the State in the 1990s is recognized and proves its participation both in those of 1992, claimed by ‘Totó’ Riina, and in the bombs of 1993, commissioned by another mafia boss, Bernardo Provenzano.

It was just after these attacks that Messina Denaro, born in Castelvetrano (Trapani), disappeared and, after the arrest of Riina and Provenzano, it was considered that he continued to pull the strings of Cosa Nostra from an unknown location.

Despite being the most wanted man in Italy, this did not prevent him from traveling to Barcelona, Spain, to undergo eye surgery, as several investigations have shown.

The power of the considered last boss of Cosa Nostra, the last of the ‘Corleoneses’, is demonstrated not only in his wide network of contacts and figureheads that he has procured over the years, but also can be quantified in more than 4,000 million euros that has been confiscated from its surroundings.

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There were only a few photographs of him from 30 years ago and the last robot portrait includes new details entrusted to the Police by some of the detainees around him. The new image describes him as somewhat older, with dyed black hair, with a little more weight, but above all without the dark glasses with which he was known due to vision problems.