“After 30 years, one of the most dangerous and most wanted mafia bosses in the world has finally been arrested. Great victory for Italy and respectable Italians!” Salvini wrote on Twitter.

“This is a great day for Italy and serves as a warning to the mafia: the institutions and our heroes in uniform never give up,” he added.

Matteo Messina Denaro is considered to be one of the new leaders of the Sicilian mob after the arrests of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006 and Salvatore Lo Piccolo in November 2007.

He became a fugitive on the most wanted list in 1993 and was one of the ten most wanted criminals in the world.

With the deaths of Bernardo Provenzano in 2016 and Salvatore Riina in 2017, Messina Denaro was seen as the unchallenged boss of all bosses within the Mafia. (ILKHA)