After a long illness, Matteo Messina Denaro, who headed the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra, died in Italy.
The Italian news agency Ansa reported his death on the night of September 24. The mayor of L’Aquila, Pierluigi Biondi, confirmed this information.
In January, the 61-year-old mafia leader was detained in a private clinic in Palermo. He had been hiding from justice for 30 years. There were no actual photographs of the mafia, which made the search much more difficult. Using several photographs taken in 1980-1990, Italian law enforcement officers made a digital reconstruction of his appearance.
In August, Denaro was transferred from a maximum security prison in L’Aquila and then to the San Salvatore City Hospital. He fell into a coma in the evening of September 22.
According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Denaro is to be buried in the family tomb with his father, Don Ciccio, who was also the head of the local mafia.
- In 2002, Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for numerous murders. These included the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the 1993 bombings in Milan, Florence, and Rome, and the kidnapping, torture, and murder of the 11-year-old son of a mafia man who was a state witness. Denaro was also involved in racketeering, illegal waste disposal, money laundering and drug trafficking.
- In Italy, three mafia groups are the most active and dangerous: the Calabrian Ndrangheta, the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, and the Neapolitan Camorra.
