The ‘Last Godfather’ of the Sicilian Mafia Has Died

An Italian mafia boss known as the “last godfather” of the Cosa Nostra has died.

Matteo Messina Denaro was one of the country's most wanted men and spent more than 30 years on the run until his capture in January. He died of cancer aged 61 on Sunday.

Nicknamed “Diabolik”, Denaro was wanted for his role in a catalogue of murders and bombings in Sicily in the early 1990s, including in the 1992 killing of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, for which he was later sentenced in absentia to multiple life terms. 

He is thought to have ordered or carried out more than 50 slayings, including the kidnap, strangling and dissolving in acid of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a state witness in 1993. Denaro himself once claimed: “I filled a cemetery, all by myself.”

It is believed that while a fugitive he still dictated mafia business in the Sicilian city of Trapani, his regional stronghold, and was known for wearing expensive suits and Rolex watches.

Denaro was arrested at a private clinic in Palermo while receiving treatment for a tumour under the false name of Andrea Bonafede. He had been hiding out in a bunker in Campobello di Mazara, a small town 70 miles away, where police found a film poster of The Godfather, depicting Don Corleone, up on his wall.

Federico Varese, Professor of Criminology at Oxford University and author of Mafia Life, told VICE News: “Well, his death leaves a bitter sweet taste in the mouth of Italians. We wished he had been arrested in 1993 and served his many sentences until 2023, rather than being caught in 2022 and die in 2023. His death just underscores the inability of Italian authorities to catch him for so long. It feels like a beffa [a bad joke].”

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, anti-mafia author Roberto Saviano wrote: “Matteo Messina Denaro (1962-2023), murderer. The boss is dead, Italy continues to be a country with a mafia vocation.”

Mafia expert Anna Sergi, a criminology and organised crime professor at the University of Essex, told VICE News when he was caught in January that Denaro was the last of the Godfathers. 

“Messina Denaro is the essence of the great historical power of the Cosa Nostra,” she said. “He was the messiah and the cult leader of the group. He is the last one, the most resilient one, the purest Sicilian mafioso remaining. This arrest means closure for Italy.”