Mafia bosses who spent longest time on the run in Italy 2023
Messina Denaro's arrest came almost 30 years to the day since police detained Cosa Nostra's "boss of bosses" Salvatore "Totò" Riina, who was nabbed in a Palermo apartment after spending 23 years on the run. Riina eventually died in prison in 2017, having never repented.
The Cosa Nostra boss who set the record for the longest time on the run was Bernardo Provenzano, who spent 38 years as a fugitive before being caught in a farmhouse near Sicily's Corleone in 2006. Provenzano died in jail in 2016, and similarly to Riina, never chose to collaborate with investigators.