In the summer of 1993 and with the Italian police hot on his heels, a love letter from 30-year-old Matteo Messina Denaro signaled the start of his flight "You'll hear about me, they'll paint me as a devil, but it'll all be lies," he wrote to his then-girlfriend Angela in farewell. Overnight, Sicily's most feared young mafia boss became a ghost.

For the next 30 years, this brutal man with the reputation of a playboy would elude investigators with the same virtuosity as his favorite comic-book hero, Diabolik, who he took his nickname from. Italy knew him by the photograph on his wanted poster for murders, bombings, arms and drug trafficking: an angular face, shrouded in mystery, hidden behind smoked glasses. This was the face of a ruthless killer, who became the symbol of superlatitanti, the most elusive bosses.

Suffering from cancer, 61-year-old Messina Denaro died in hospital, as reported by the ANSA agency on Monday, September 25. Several dozen police used to stand guard around the room of the former "Godfather" in the San Salvatore hospital in L'Aquila (Abruzzo).

Eight months earlier, on January 16, it was precisely by following the trail of his colon tumor that investigators finally managed to arrest Italy's most notorious fugitive, while he was on his way to a medical consultation, under an assumed identity, at a clinic in Palermo. This ended the career of a man who had never before set foot in a prison cell, or even the dock in a court.

Messina Denaro's criminal destiny was rooted in Castelvetrano, in the Sicilian province of Trapani, where he was born on April 26, 1962. Although the fourth of six siblings (and the second son), he grew up as an heir, programmed to succeed his father, Francesco, known as Don Ciccio. A simple farmer, according to his identity papers, "Ciccio" was in reality the mafia boss of this region of western Sicily. A silent man, he was allied to the Corleones, who became the new masters of the island in the early 1980s, at the cost of a bloodbath. At their head was Toto Riina, the "capo dei capi," also nicknamed "La Belva" ("the beast").

It was the "beast" himself who mentored young Matteo and propelled him into the Cosa Nostra elite. Riina taught this promising boy, initially nicknamed "U Seccu" ("the skinny one") because of his wiry figure, the art of scheming as well as express killings. Using a Walther P38, the ambitious young man proved his worth. He even exceeded his master's expectations, but also broke the rules of the old-school "men of honor," who were generally discreet and rather austere. Messina Denaro was a gambler. He went to discos, drove a Porsche, paraded around in Versace suits, scarf around his neck, gold watch on his wrist.

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