Italian police have arrested the most wanted boss of the Cosa Nostra gang, Matteo Messina Denaro, ANSA reports.

According to the agency, the criminal had been hiding from the authorities for thirty years, since the summer of 1993. He was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment on the case of murder of anti-mafia fighters Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. He was detained at La Maddalena, a private hospital in Palermo, where he was receiving treatment.

A great victory for a state that demonstrates that it does not give up in the face of the mafia, commented Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni on the arrest of the gang leader.