The capture of Italy's most wanted mafia boss on Monday after almost three decades on the run was hailed as “a great victory for the state” by the country's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Locals clapped and shook hands with police as Matteo Messina Denaro was led away from a private clinic in Palermo that proved to be his final stop as a free man.
Known as “Diabolik” – a nickname taken from a comic book series based around an uncatchable thief – and “U Siccu” [skinny one], Messina Denaro is thought by many to be the last “secret-keeper” of the Cosa Nostra – someone who holds all the information around some of the Sicilian Mafia's most heinous crimes.
