Matteo Messina Denaro, an Italian mafia leader convicted of many murders and who was finally apprehended in January after 30 years on the run, died of cancer on Monday, September 25, at the age of 61, according to authorities.
Messina Denaro, who was dubbed "the last Godfather" by the Italian press, was arrested when he was in the midst of a colon cancer battle. His health has been deteriorating over the last several weeks, so he was moved from the central Italy maximum-security prison where he was being detained to a hospital.
He went into a coma last Friday, September 22, and never woke up.
Captured After Years of Hiding
When Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two anti-mafia prosecutors, were murdered in 1992, it outraged Italy and prompted a crackdown on the Sicilian mob. Messina Denaro was found guilty of many crimes, including aiding in the killings, according to Forbes.
In 1993, he was accused of orchestrating the abduction of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo to prevent the boy's father from testifying against the mafia and of being responsible for explosions in Rome, Florence, and Milan that killed 10. Two years later, the youngster was slain after being kept captive.
Messina Denaro was arrested on January 16 outside a private clinic in Palermo, Sicily. He has been reported to have cooperated with authorities.
Leaked medical documents to the Italian media indicate he had colon cancer surgery between 2020 and 2022. Messina Denaro's health deteriorated drastically in the months leading up to his arrest, according to a doctor at the Palermo clinic who spoke with La Repubblica.
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Earlier Life in Mafia
Messina Denaro, the son of a mafioso, was born in the town of Castelvetrano on the southwestern coast of Sicily in 1962.
In a report by Reuters, he had already joined the mafia-like his father at the age of 15, and was armed with a revolver. At age 18, he allegedly committed his first murder, according to the police.
The Castelvetrano family was friends with the Corleonesi, headed by Salvatore "the Beast" Riina, who rose to become the unchallenged "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra (Our Thing). Messina Denaro was one of his pupils and proved to be equally as ruthless as his mentor by receiving 20 life sentences for his part in several mob killings during trials that were conducted while he was in jail.
He allegedly boasted that he was responsible for the deaths of enough individuals to fill a cemetery.
Investigators suspect Messina Denaro seldom left Sicily after he went into hiding in 1993 as more and more mafia turncoats began disclosing information about his participation in the organization.
According to the police, he spent most of 2022 hiding away in Campobello di Mazara, a town of around 11,000 people in western Sicily, near his mother's home.
