Benedetto “Nitto” Santapaola, one of Italy’s most notorious Sicilian mafia bosses who spent more than three decades behind bars, has died at the age of 87, according to two sources close to the matter.
Santapaola, who was arrested in 1993 and was serving multiple life sentences for murder and other serious crimes, died in a high-security prison in Milan. Italy’s justice ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Known by the nicknames “il cacciatore” (the hunter) and “il licantropo” (the werewolf), Santapaola led the mafia in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, building one of the most powerful criminal networks in the region.
He was later convicted as one of the masterminds behind the 1992 assassinations of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, murders that shocked Italy and intensified the state’s crackdown on organized crime.
