Italian police arrest long-sought Mafia boss

Matteo Messina Denaro rides in the back of a police vehicle following arrest.

(Image credit: Italian Gendarmerie (Carabinieri) Press Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

published 16 January 2023

Italian authorities on Monday arrested Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro at a private clinic in Sicily. Denaro, Italy's most wanted fugitive, had been on the run for 30 years, The Washington Post reports.

The arrest marked a "landmark moment" in Italy's decades-long fight against organized crime, the Post said. "A great victory for the state," Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni added in a statement. Denaro has been on Italy's most wanted list for three decades. He has been convicted in absentia for dozens of murders and faces multiple life sentences. Denaro is also allegedly the leader of the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

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