A local mayor has confirmed on Monday that Sicilian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, known as the “last godfather,” has passed away.
The 61-year-old, who had colon cancer, had been in a coma since Friday and his doctors had deemed it irreversible, according to media reports.

Denaro was considered to be Italy’s most wanted fugitive before he was captured in January this year, after having been on the run for 30 years.

Grisly murders and 30 years in hiding
Messina Denaro waged terror on the state on behalf of the Cosa Nostra before going on the run in 1993.

After a decade-long crackdown that diminished Cosa Nostra’s power, he was finally captured in January during a visit to a health clinic in Palermo for cancer treatment.

He was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of numerous crimes.

He was convicted for his role in the 1992 car bombings that killed anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and triggered a clampdown on the Sicilian mob.

Among several other crimes, Messina Denaro was also accused of being involved in mafia attacks in Rome, Milan and Florence in 1993, which had left 10 people dead.

“With the people I have killed myself, I could fill a cemetery,” he was reportedly known to have said, in a claim impossible to confirm.

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