Deadly Italian Mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, arrested after 30 years on the run

The most sought mafia boss in Italy, Matteo Messina Denaro, was apprehended by police on Monday after more than 30 years on the run.

In a morning search at a private hospital in the Sicilian city Palermo, where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed medical issue, Denaro 60, the head of the Sicily Cosa Nostra mafia family, was detained, according to the police.
According to local media, the Mafia boss was given a life sentence in absentia for his involvement in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

As a result of his participation in the bombings that occurred in Florence, Rome, and Milan the following year and left 10 people dead, he also faces a life sentence.

Denaro who is from the southern Italian town of Castelvetrano near Trapani, is accused by prosecutors of being solely or jointly responsible for several other murders in the 1990s.

In an effort to stop the 12-year-old boy’s father from testifying against the mafia in 1993, he assisted in planning Giuseppe Di Matteo’s kidnapping.

Prosecutors claim that the youngster was held captive for two years before being strangled and having his body dissolved in acid.

Denaro had been missing for a long time, but according to police, as of September of last year, he was still in a position to provide orders regarding how the Mafia was operated in the region surrounding Trapani, a city in western Sicily that served as his regional stronghold.