First night in prison for the Mafia boss Domenico Raccuglia, who was arrested yesterday afternoon in Calatafimi, in the province of Trapani, after almost fifteen years of hiding. The boss was alone in the house of a young couple, also arrested for aiding and abetting. Raccuglia, 45 years old, was captured after being shadowed and telephone tapping, by the police of Palermo.

He had been on the run since 1996 for murders, extortions, robberies and Mafia. He was also sentenced to three times of life imprisonment for the killing of young Giuseppe Di Matteo. He tried to escape from the terrace of the flat in Cabasino road in Calatafimi Segesta, a town rich in history and well-known for the battle of Garibaldi against the Bourbons. The operation was well planned, the building was surrounded and the police could not have failed to arrested the person that the home secretary Maroni called “the Mafia’s number two”. But, apart from positions, which change very rapidly in the Mafia, Raccuglia was one of the most wanted Mafiosi together with Matteo Messina Denaro and Giovanni Nicchi.

Raccuglia was a man close to the Brusca group of San Giuseppe Jato and he managed to arrive a the top of the Mafia thanks to his ferocity, despite the nickname “vet” he was given, because of his passion for animals, especially cats and horses. Raccuglia controlled the territory between the provinces of Palermo and Trapani. The police are analyzing the documents and the pizzini (small pieces of paper) found yesterday in the flat.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute