Matteo Messina Denaro is dead. The famous Sicilian mafioso and leader of Cosa Nostra died in a hospital in central Italy, the ANSA news agency reported on Monday.
Matteo Messina Denaro, born in 1962, suffered from colon cancer. It was the disease that made me, after 30 years of hiding from the justice system, On January 17, 2023, he was arrested during a hospital visit in Palermo, where he was waiting for chemotherapy.
The moment Denaro enters the clinicArma Dei Carabinieri
Wanted for nearly 30 years
Matteo Messina Denaro, also known as “Diabolik”, was the head of Cosa Nostra and the son of its earlier boss, Castelvetrano Francesco Messina, known under the pseudonym “Ciccio”. “Ciccio” was also an ally of Toto Riina, the famously cruel mafia boss from the Corleone region. Soon Denaro himself became close to Riina.
After the arrest and death of other “big bosses” of the Sicilian mafia – Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano – Denaro went into hiding.
Matteo Messina DenaroArma dei Carabinieri
“Diabolik” was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for dozens of murders, including the killing of the son of converted mafioso Giuseppe Di Matteo, whose body he later dissolved in acid, and for the assassinations of investigating judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
A year later, he was involved in bomb attacks on Milan, Florence and Rome, which killed 10 people. He remained elusive to the police for almost 30 years.
Main photo source: Arma dei Carabinieri