Italy’s most-wanted mafia boss Messina Denaro arrested in Sicily

By Giada Zampano

ROME (AA) – Italy's most-wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested in Sicily on Monday morning after about three decades on the run, Italian police said.

Denaro, 60, was detained in a private clinic in the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italian media reported, adding he was arrested just before 0900GMT and taken to a secret location by the Carabinieri police.

Denaro, considered one of the most powerful bosses of Sicily's Cosa Nostra mafia, had been sentenced in absentia to a life term for several murders, including his role in the 1992 killings of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

He also faces a life sentence for his role in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan, which killed 10 people in 1993.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the arrest "a great victory for the state that shows it never gives up in the face of the mafia."

Denaro, the Last "Godfather" of Cosa Nostra, had been a fugitive since 1993, but anti-mafia prosecutors believed he was still issuing orders from various secret locations.​​​​​​​