A Mafia boss, accused of dozens of murders, has been arrested after spending 30 years on the run. The Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafia's don Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested today by the Italian special operations carabinieri in Palermo, Sicily. Denaro, whose nickname is "Diabolik", was seized inside the Maddalena private clinic in Palermo as he was being prepared to "undergo therapy", the commander of the Ros Carabinieri said. The 60-year-old was taken to a secret location by police immediately after the arrest, Italian state television reported. He was the son of an old mafia boss and had been a fugitive since 1993. Denaro was the last of three top-level Mafia bosses who had eluded capture for decades. He was also thought to be Sicily's top mafioso.
Around the time he fled, he wrote a letter to his girlfriend indicating his name might become "associated with serious bloodshed". He wrote the letter after a series of massacres in Rome, Milan and Florence in 1992 that resulted in the deaths of dozens, according to ANSA. The correspondence read: "You will hear about me - he wrote them, implying that he was aware that shortly thereafter his name would be associated with serious bloodshed - they will paint me as a devil, but they are all falsehoods".
In his absence, he was sentenced to life in prison. The murders included the slaying of Giuseppe Di Matteo, a rival mobster who was strangled and dissolved in a vat of acid. He was also held responsible for the massacres of 1992 and for attacks across Milan, Florence and Rome in 1993.
For the Carabinieri, Denaro was the last of the original Mafia bosses still wanted. Hundreds of officers have been involved in hunting him down over the years and in today's arrest, according to ANSA. His decades-long avoidance of law enforcement made him one of Italy's longest-running fugitives, beating the record of his faithful ally Totò Riina, who escaped handcuffs for 23 years. His pal Bernando Provenzano managed to avoid prison for 38 years.
Today's arrest comes exactly 30 years after that of Riina, who was taken into custody on January 15, 1993, also in Palermo. In June last year, the boss of another mafia organisation, the Camorra, died in prison - prompting an urgent manslaughter investigation. Cosimo Di Lauro, 48, had been sentenced to life in Opera prison in Milan, and was said to be one of the most ruthless and cold-hearted bosses in the Camorra mafia organisation. The group is based in and around the Italian city of Naples, and the organisation's top don had overseen one of the biggest wars in Italian mafia history, with a war responsible for the deaths of over 150 associates across an eight-month period in 2005 and 2006.
The late Cosimo had been given the nickname The Designer Don for his taste in designer clothing and was nicknamed the Prince Regent by the media for his flamboyant lifestyle. Reports indicate that an autopsy has been called on Cosimo, who was found dead at the prison he had been serving a life sentence at since 2005, the Daily Star reports.
