On January 16, Italian law enforcement officers caught a dangerous 60-year-old mafia who had been hiding from justice for three decades . More than 100 military personnel were involved in the operation to arrest the criminal.

And when he was finally arrested, people on the streets applauded the Italian police. So who is this dangerous man?According to the Italian media, Denaro behind the pseudo “Diabolic” and “U Siccu” is one of the most powerful bosses of the Italian mafia and one of the most wanted criminals in the world. He once boasted that he could “fill the cemetery” with his victims, including an ex-criminal who wanted to testify against the mafia, a hotel manager and several judges.

His godfather is Antonino Marotta, a former member gang of Salvatore Giuliano.

He was born in Castelvetrano in 1962 and initially worked as a farmer with his father, Francesco Messina Denaro. It should be noted that his father was not an ordinary landowner. He was also a mafia, moreover, a mafia boss. Denaro Jr. learned to shoot at the age of 14, and received the title of godfather in 2007.

During his life, he was able to stain himself with almost all crimes that come to mind: racketeering, kidnapping, torture, murder, laundering money, drug trafficking and even illegal waste disposal. He is also considered the last “keeper of the secrets” of the Cosa Nostra.

Just some of the crimes

At 20, Matteo became a student of Toto Riina, an Italian Sicilian mafia, and at 27, he began his criminal path. Then he was accused of having links with the mafia for participating in the feud between the Accardo and Ingoglia clans.

Already 2 years after that, Matteo Messina Denaro killed the owner of a hotel in Trishina, Nicolai Consalez, who dared to complain about “those mafia who always there”.

In 1989, the name of Denaro was included in the investigation file for the first time. She began to investigate the police commissioner of Castelvetrano Rino Germana, for which they tried to kill him.

Subsequently, after 3 years, Messina Denaro was involved in a number of crimes, among which there were murders. So, in 1992, he was part of the mafia commandos, who were supposed to attack Maurizio Costanzo in Rome, and also kill the mafia fighter Giovanni Falcone and minister Claudio Martelli. In the same 1992, he was also among the perpetrators of the murder of the head of the Alcamo clan, Vincenzo Milazzo. Also, another crime fighter, Paolo Borsellino, became his victim.

A few days after the murder, he strangled the boss's companion Antonella Bonomo, who was in her third month of pregnancy.

Also among the “accomplishments” of Denaro and kidnapping. So, in 1993, his victim was 11-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, kidnapped as a warning to his father, a former mafia, not to cooperate with investigators. After 779 days of imprisonment, the boy was strangled and his body was dissolved in acid.

In 1993, his name was also associated with explosions in Milan, Florence and Rome, which killed 10 people.

Hiding from justice

Such numerous murders could not go unpunished. Therefore, in 1992, Matteo Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, and since 1993 he has been hiding from justice. Despite this, law enforcement officers believed that even in the shadows, the man was still giving orders to his subordinates.

Moreover, after the death of his father in 1998, he became the head of the district of Castelvetrano and the representative of the province of Trapani in the Cosa Nostra. His puppets said that Denaro managed to avoid arrest for so long thanks to facial plastic surgery, while others claimed that he also had his fingertips reshaped to erase their prints.

Denaro on his driver's license and his identikit, aged 20 years/Online Collage

Caught the Elusive

In order to catch the seemingly elusive mafia, investigators monitored his family and friends, and in 2013 arrested his sister Patricia and several associates. Also, enterprises associated with Diabolik were seized.

And although the criminal himself managed to hide behind cover at the highest level for 30 years, on January 16, 2023, the carabinieri were able to arrest him. A lot of work and the collection of a lot of information from many departments of the Carabinieri led to this.

Great pleasure, because it is an extraordinary result. Messina Denaro was a figure of the very first operational level, Carabinieri commander Teo Lusi told the media.

The mafiosi was detained when he was in a day hospital at the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo. There he underwent chemotherapy under the pseudonym “Andrea Bonafede”. After that, the now former super fugitive was transferred first to the San Lorenzo barracks, and then to the Boccadifalco airport, where he was taken to a maximum security colony.

The Italian Interior Ministry called this “a historic result in the fight against the mafia.”

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We didn't win the war, we didn't beat the mafia, but this battle was a key battle to win, and it's a heavy blow to organized crime. This proves that mafiosi, despite their illusion of omnipotence, are definitively doomed to defeat in a conflict with a democratic state,” said Italian Prime Minister Georgia Maloney.

It is not surprising that the Italians welcomed the arrest of such a criminal with applause and thanks to law enforcement officers .