Italy's most wanted mafia boss arrested

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1615032508084535296

Italy's most wanted mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested by armed police at a private hospital in Sicily on Monday, where the man who has been on the run since 1993 was being treated for cancer.

Nicknamed "Diabolik" and "'U Siccu" (The Skinny One), Messina Denaro had been sentenced in absentia to a life term for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, crimes that shocked the nation and sparked a crackdown on Cosa Nostra.

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[Battista Minola 1616]

Finally! His hiding is something I heard about so many times. It feels weirdly anticlimactic and sobering he was only caught while he was being treated for cancer, but better late than never. I am sure he can get medical care in the maximum security prison of L'Aquila. I am actually surprised he was escorted there so quickly but after all he's already been convicted so many times there was not much else to do.

[CumbrianLefty]

Is it me, or is the Mafia not as big a "thing" as it was for the second half of the 20th century?

[Battista Minola 1616]

Is it me, or is the Mafia not as big a "thing" as it was for the second half of the 20th century?

It definitely looks less strong than it used to be - a lot of big bosses have been arrested and the decades of major assassinations of public officials are over for instance, and I feel like there is a lot more anti-Mafia civic activism - as much as it's a persistent problem. This probably deserves a breakdown into the various organized crime rings, but while I can point out that said major public official assassinations were a Cosa nostra speciality and could mention the recent operations in Eastern Europe of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta in particular and so on, overall I honestly don't know enough to say who has been hit the hardest.

[Blue3]

It was big until around 1980/1990 I want to say. At least here in Rhode Island.

[Conservatopia]

Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading the Slovak politics thread knows that the mafia haven't gone away

[Battista Minola 1616]

Matteo Messina Denaro died yesterday. Very sad, nobody should die at 61 years old, especially not someone who deserved at least 30 years in prison before leaving this Earth.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

His cancer must have been pretty awful if it claimed his life at an age this early.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

RIP Johnny Sack