1 of 3 Messina Denaro is arrested in Palermo in January 2023 Photo: Press Office of the Italian Carabinieri/AFP Messina Denaro is arrested in Palermo in January 2023 Photo: Press Office of the Italian Carabinieri/AFP
Matteo Messina Denaro, the last boss of the Italian mafia, died this Monday (25) at the age of 61. He was responsible for leading the Cosa Nostra in the Trapani region of Sicily.
Denaro had colon cancer when he was arrested in January after being on the run for 30 years. According to authorities, his health deteriorated in recent weeks and he was transferred to a hospital at the maximum security prison in central Italy, where he was initially held.
On Friday (22) the hospital reported that he was in an “irreversible coma” and was no longer receiving food. Denaro asked not to be revived if he died.
His body is expected to be returned to Sicily for a private funeral in the coming days, a government official told Portal.
For many years, Messina Denaro was one of the main characters of the Cosa Nostra, the reallife Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in The Godfather films. He was one of the cruelest and was sentenced to life imprisonment six times, including for his role in the murder of antiMafia judge Giovanni Falcone in 1992.
2 of 3 Matto Messina Denaro is arrested in Sicily after 30 years on the run Photo: Carabinieri Military Police/via Portal Matto Messina Denaro is arrested in Sicily after 30 years on the run Photo: Carabinieri Military Police/via Portal
He was also convicted of participating in a series of attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993 that killed ten people, and of helping to organize the kidnapping of 12yearold Giuseppe Di Matteo in order to dissuade the boy’s father from testifying against the Mafia. The boy was held for two years and then murdered.
He disappeared in the summer of 1993 and topped Italy’s most wanted list.
Denaro, dubbed “the last big boss” by the Italian press, reportedly failed to give police any information after being arrested on January 16 outside a private health clinic in the Sicilian capital Palermo.
According to medical documents leaked to the Italian press, he underwent surgery for colon cancer under an assumed name in 2020 and 2022. A doctor at the Palermo clinic told La Repubblica newspaper that his health had deteriorated significantly in the months before his arrest.
3 of 3 Italian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro in a police car after being arrested in Sicily on January 16, 2023. — Photo: Carabinieri via Portal Italian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro in a police car after being arrested in Sicily on January 16, 2023, 2023. — Photo: Carabinieri via Portal