SICILIAN mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who spent 30 years on the run before his arrest in January, has died.
The 61 year old – responsible for heinous crimes that shocked Italy and the world – had been suffering from cancer.
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As Messina Denaro’s health had deteriorated in recent weeks, he was transferred from his maximum security prison to hospital.
The mafia don, who fronted up the notorious Sicilian “Cosa Nostra” group, once boasted to have murdered “enough people to fill a small cemetery.”
His clan inspired the epic crime novel and blockbuster film, The Godfather.
Following his reign of terror, he picked up 20 life sentences for his role in numerous murders, bombings and attacks on competing mobsters and the civilian population.
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The so-called “Boss of Bosses” was charged with the 1992 murders of two anti-mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
He was also responsible bomb attacks which killed ten people in Florence, Milan and Rome the following year.
On January 16 after decades on the run, Messina Denaro was arrested during a daring police raid.
He was seized during a visit to a private medical clinic in Sicily’s largest city of Palermo, where he was reportedly receiving cancer treatment.
Italian media reported that he had previously undergone surgery for colon cancer in 2020 and 2022 under a false name.
Astonishing footage shows crowds applauding and cheering the police in the streets as Italy’s most wanted mobster was led away in handcuffs.
The frail-looking mafia boss was pictured in the back of a police car alongside an armed cop.
The ruthless killer’s last confirmed sighting was in August 1993 when he was spotted with two friends holidaying in Forte dei Marmi in the northern Italian region of Tuscany.
The son of a notorious Sicilian mafioso, Denaro was born in Castelvetrano in 1962.
By 15, he was already carrying a gun and following his father’s footsteps into a life on crime.
Cops say he carried out his first killing at 18.