The leader of the Sicilian mafia "Cosa Nostra" Matteo Messina Denaro died in Italy after a long illness.
This is reported by The Guardian.
The Italian news agency Ansa reported his death on the night of September 24. The mayor of LʼAquila Pierluigi Biondi confirmed this information.
In January, the 61-year-old mafia leader was detained in a private clinic in Palermo. He hid from justice for 30 years. There were no up-to-date photographs of mobsters, and this made the search much more difficult. Using several pictures taken in the 1980s and 1990s, Italian law enforcement officers made a digital reconstruction of his appearance.
In August, Denaro was transferred from the maximum security prison in LʼAquila and then to the city hospital of San Salvatore. He fell into a coma on the evening of September 22.
According to the newspaper Corriere della Sera, Denaro is planned to be buried in the family tomb together with his father, Don Ciccio, who was also the head of the local mafia.
- In 2002, Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for multiple murders. These include the 1992 murder of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the 1993 bombings in Milan, Florence, and Rome, as well as the kidnapping, torture, and murder of the mobsterʼs 11-year-old son, who was a state witness. Denaro was also involved in racketeering, illegal waste disposal, money laundering and drug trafficking.
- Three mafia groups are the most active and dangerous in Italy: the Calabrian ʼNdrangheta, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, and the Neapolitan Camorra.