Who is Matteo Messina Denaro? Mafia boss captured in Italy once boasted he could fill a cemetery with his victims

Failing health, more than anything else, is what brought to an end 30 years of life as a fugitive for Matteo Messina Denaro

He had been a leading figure in Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in the Godfather movies

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Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, Italy’s most wanted man, being arrested in Palermo, Sicily, on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:25am, 17 Jan 2023Updated: 2:40pm, 17 Jan 2023

Italian investigators knew a lot of things about mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

He liked wearing designer clothes, expensive sun glasses and Rolex watches, he loved video games and had a taste for luxury foods. He was also a ruthless killer who once claimed to have murdered enough people to fill a cemetery.

What they didn’t know was where he was.

But on Monday, after 30 years on the run, the most wanted mafioso in Italy was finally captured, seized in a private clinic in the Sicilian capital Palermo after police found out he was receiving treatment there for cancer.

“It is a day of celebration when we can tell our children that the mafia can be beaten,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who flew straight to Sicily when news of the arrest broke, underlining the importance of the capture.

Messina Denaro was born in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano in 1962, the son of a mafioso. He followed his father into the mob and at 15 he was already carrying a gun. Police believe he carried out his first killing when he was 18.