Longtime Italian Mafia Boss DEAD

A longtime Italian Mafia boss who previously spent 30 years on the run before he was finally arrested this year, died on Monday morning.

Matteo Messina Denaro a member of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra died at the age of 61.

Before his death, Denaro was sentenced to a life sentence after being “convicted in absentia of several crimes including planning the murders of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.”

No foul play was involved in Denaros’ death and a medical examiner confirmed he died from colon cancer.

Italian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who was one of the country’s most wanted men until his arrest after 30 years on the run, has died of cancer at the San Salvatore hospital in the city of L’Aquila pic.twitter.com/svmkQjRyuc

— RT (@RT_com) September 25, 2023

🚨New: Sicilian Mafia boss Messina Denaro who was called the boss of all bosses has died at the age of 61. pic.twitter.com/1WI4AF7ntY

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) September 25, 2023

Per  USA Today:

An Italian Mafia boss who spent 30 years on the run before his capture earlier this year died on Monday, Italian media reported. Matteo Messina Denaro, 61, had colon cancer when he was arrested in January.

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His condition worsened in recent months, and he was transferred to L’Aquila Hospital. Denaro went into a coma on Friday and never regained consciousness, Italian outlet ANSA reported.”You shouldn’t deny prayers to anyone, but I can’t say I am sorry,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said in a message on Instagram.

Denaro, of the Cosa Nostra mob, had been convicted in absentia of several crimes including planning the murders of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, the Associated Press reported. He was given multiple life sentences.

Matteo Messina Denaro, a convicted mastermind of some of the Sicilian Mafia’s most heinous slayings, died in a hospital prison ward on Monday, several months after being captured as Italy’s No. 1 fugitive, Italian prosecutors said. https://t.co/Sv3iYcmA7X

— The Associated Press (@AP) September 25, 2023

Here’s what The New York Times reported:

Matteo Messina Denaro, a convicted killer and high-ranking mobster with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra who had eluded capture for three decades, died on Monday in a hospital in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, where he had been serving time in a maximum-security prison. He was 61. Alessandro Cerella, a lawyer for Mr. Messina Denaro, said the cause was colon cancer.

Mr. Messina Denaro had been undergoing treatment for several years, and on Friday he fell into a coma that doctors said was irreversible.

Mr. Messina Denaro was arrested in January while waiting to undergo chemotherapy at a private clinic in Palermo. He had been using a fake identity, and investigators discovered that he was being treated for cancer when they found a scrap of paper with his medical history rolled up in the leg of a chair in his mother’s home in Castelvetrano, Sicily.Since he was not treated under his real name, they used national health service records to identify patients with similar conditions and narrow it down.