Most-Wanted Mafia Boss Arrested In Italy & His Story Is Straight Out Of A True Crime Show
He was on the run for 30 years!
Matteo Messina Denaro being arrested.
After 30 years on the run, Italian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro has officially been captured by Italian authorities.
Messina Denaro, notably known as the mafia “godfather,” and leader of the Cosa Nostra organized crime syndicate, was arrested in the capital of Sicily, Palermo, reported Italian news outlet La Repubblica.
The 60-year-old's arrest happened while receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer in a private clinic under a secret name, reported BBC.
A video of Messina Denaro's arrest shows Italian police escorting him into a police vehicle.
\u201cOne of the biggest piece of shit on earth has been finally caught after 30 years.\n\n"La mafia \u00e9 una montagna di merda"\n#MatteoMessinaDenaro\u201d— Antonino Greco (@Antonino Greco) 1673866419
Another video on Twitter shows people applauding the Italian police for finally capturing the mafia boss.
\u201cLa vostra gioia si fonde con la nostra per continuare a costruire insieme una societ\u00e0 libera dall\u2019oppressione mafiosa. \nI vostri \u201cgrazie ragazzi\u201d gettano le basi per un futuro migliore e ripagano anni di impegno e duro lavoro. \n#Carabinieri #PossiamoAiutarvi\u201d— Arma dei Carabinieri (@Arma dei Carabinieri) 1673873778
During a news conference, Italian investigators said the mafia boss was "unarmed" and dressed like a "typical patient" at the clinic, according to the Associated Press.
“He didn’t resist at all,″ Carabinieri Col. Lucio Arcidiacono said.
Messina Denaro was on Italy's most-wanted list and has been accused of multiple murders and bombings.
More specifically, he is suspected of being behind the 1993 bomb attacks in Milan, Florence and Rome, which killed ten people, according to reports by Le Monde.
The BBC reports, the mobster was convicted of the 1992 murders of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
He was also reportedly convicted of kidnapping, torturing and killing the 11-year-old son of a former mafia member turned state witness.
The mafia boss once boasted about his murders and claimed that he could “fill a cemetery” with his victims, per a BBC report.
Messina Denaro was tried and sentenced to life in prison in 2002 over his many murders but was on the run for the past three decades.
The BBC also notes that he managed to pull off his decades-long run from the police because of a lack of good-quality images of him.
The police had to rely on reconstructing images of him over the years to try and capture him.