transformed the mafia into a criminal power

Benedetto Nitto Santapaolaone of the historical and most bloodthirsty bosses of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, has died at the age of 87 in Milan after spending the last 33 years of his life in prison serving multiple life sentences in severe isolation.

Santapaola (Catania, 1938), who suffered from a diabetes grave, He died in the prison medicine department of the San Paolo hospital, where he was transferred from the Opera prison after his health worsened, local sources reported.

During his time at the head of the organization, Nitto Santapaola was the architect of the transformation of the homonymous clan of Catania into a criminal power.

Unlike other bosses, He cultivated a business profile that allowed him to infiltrate institutions and the legal economy; In the 70s and 80s it was common to see him photographed alongside prefects, commissioners and the Catanese gentry.

In parallel, He used the most extreme violence to eliminate his rivals and control drug trafficking and public procurement, causing hundreds of deaths and being responsible for some of the bloodiest episodes in the history of Sicily.

His flight from justice ended on May 18, 1993, when was captured in a country house in the Caltagirone area (Sicily) after 11 years on the run.

Since then, he remained uninterruptedly under the 41-bis prison regime, the isolation system designed to prevent mafia bosses from continuing to run their clans from prison.

He 41 bis is a severe solitary confinement regime in force in Italy since the 1980s, created in 1975 for serious crimes and prison riots, and applied to gangsters after the 1992 attacks in which judges were murdered anti-mafia Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.