Italy's most wanted mobster, considered the boss of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Matteo Messina Denaro, on the run for 30 years, was arrested in Palermo, Sicily, Italian media reported on Monday.
“Today, January 16, the carabinieri (…) arrested the fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro inside a health structure in Palermo where he had gone to undergo clinical therapies”, indicated the general of the carabinieri Pasquale Angelosanto at the AGI agency.
Sentenced to life for murder
On the run since 1993, this 53-year-old man is considered the successor of the two great historical bosses of Cosa Nostra, Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who both died in prison.
A former Cosa Nostra trigger, he has already been sentenced in his absence to life imprisonment for murder.
Read alsoSicilian mafia: after the death of Toto Riina, what remains of Cosa Nostra?
Since the 2000s, the Italian police have multiplied arrests and seizures in his entourage, in a strategy of isolation which has so far not borne fruit.
In 2015, the police discovered that he was abandoning modern methods of communication to transmit his orders to his men via the traditional "pizzini", these small papers containing often coded messages.
