Matteo Messina Denaro arrested, he had been on the run since 1993

Matteo Messina Denaro arrested, he had been on the run since 1993.

Head of the Castelvetrano district and undisputed representative of the mafia in the province of Trapani, he was one of the most powerful bosses of the entire Cosa Nostra, going so far as to exercise their power well beyond the borders of their province, such as those of Agrigento and even Palermo.

The mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested by the Carabinieri del Ros, after 30 years on the run.

In the summer of 1993, while the bomb attacks were taking place, Messina Denaro went on holiday to Forte dei Marmi together with brothers Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano and from then on he became untraceable, beginning his long absence. An arrest warrant was issued against him for mafia association, murder, massacre, devastation, possession and porting of explosive material, theft and other minor crimes.

In November 1993, Messina Denaro was among the organizers of the kidnapping of little Giuseppe Di Matteo to force Father Santino to retract his revelations about the Capaci massacre. Finally, after 779 days of captivity, little Di Matteo was brutally strangled and his body dissolved in acid.

Some investigators had explicitly referred to the now former fugitive from Castelvetrano as the current one head of the Cosa Nostra interprovincial commission. Other sources saw the boss now exclusively dealing with his own inaction, perhaps even far from Sicily, formally only with the role of mafia contact in the province of Trapani, but without an active role within Cosa Nostra.

The investigation that led to the capture of the mafia boss of Castelvetrano (TP) was coordinated by Palermo Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia and Deputy Prosecutor Paolo Guido.

This is what ANSA learns from qualified sources.

Matteo Messina Denaro would have been arrested inside a private clinic in Palermo, where he had gone «to undergo treatment». He stated this to ANSA the commander of the Carabinieri ROS Pasquale Angelosanto, after the arrest of the boss carried out by the men of the special group together with those of the GIS and the territorial commands.

"The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella telephoned the Minister of the Interior and the Commander of the Carabinieri to express his congratulations on the arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro, carried out in close collaboration with the Judiciary". We read it in a note from the Quirinale.

«A great victory for the State which demonstrates that it does not give up in the face of the mafia", Like this the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni comments on the news of the arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro. «In the aftermath of the anniversary of Totò Riina's arrest, another organized crime boss is brought to justice».