Who is Matteo Messina Denaro aka ‘Godfather?’ Italy’s most-wanted mafia boss arrested in Sicily

Matteo Messina Denaro, Sicily's sought-after Mafia boss, was apprehended on Monday, January 16, 2023, after being on the run for nearly 30 years. The 60-year-old Mafia leader, dubbed "Italy's Godfather," was apprehended in Palermo, Sicily's capital.

According to the BBC, Matteo Messina Denaro, who is believed to be the head of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, was arrested at a private clinic in Palermo where he was undergoing treatment for cancer. According to the publication, Italian media reported that Denaro was detained just before 10:00 a.m. and taken to a secret location by the Carabinieri.

Matteo was reportedly visiting the private clinic after adopting a fake name, "Andrea Bonafede," for a course of chemotherapy. A video taken and circulated by Italian media outlet Repubblica shows people standing outside in the street and applauding the Italian police for apprehending Matteo Messina Denaro, who had terrorized the country for years.

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Italian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro had reportedly boasted about filling a "cemetery" with his victims

Denaro, Italy's most wanted Mafia leader, built a legacy of terror and death before he absconded. In 2002, the alleged boss of the notorious Cosa Nostra Mafia was reportedly tried and given a life imprisonment sentence in absentia.

Matteo Messina Denaro once allegedly boasted that he would "fill a cemetery" with his victims. His list of victims is definitely long and includes names such as anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were killed in 1992.

According to the BBC, Denaro was also convicted of the kidnapping, torture, and murder of the 11-year-old son of a mafioso-turned-state witness. He was involved in the horrifying 1993 bomb attacks in the Italian cities of Milan, Florence, and Rome that killed ten people.

Apart from the killings, Matteo Messina Denaro was also reportedly involved in overseeing racketeering, illegal waste dumping, money laundering, and drug trafficking for the Cosa Nostra organized crime syndicate.

Informers and prosecutors alike believe that Denaro holds all the crucial information and the names of those involved in several of the most high-profile crimes committed or masterminded by the Italian Mafia, including the bomb attacks that killed magistrates Falcone and Borsellino. He is also thought to have continued to issue orders to his subordinates from various hidden locations while on the run from the law.

According to local media, Denaro is thought to be the Italian mafia Cosa Nostra's last "secret keeper." He was the last of three longtime fugitive high-ranking Mafia bosses who had for decades eluded arrest.