Nitto Santapaola, the longtime head of Cosa Nostra in Catania, has died at 87 in Milan’s San Paolo hospital. Born Benedetto Santapaola in 1938, he had been serving multiple life sentences under the 41-bis high-security prison regime at Opera jail. He was hospitalized on February 25 after his health deteriorated; prosecutors in Milan have ordered an autopsy. He had long suffered from severe diabetes.
For decades, Santapaola was considered one of the most powerful and ruthless figures in the Sicilian Mafia. Courts identified him as a mastermind behind numerous murders and bombings, including the 1992 Capaci attack that killed anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and three members of their escort. He was also convicted in connection with the Via D’Amelio bombing, the 1984 murder of journalist Giuseppe Fava, and the killing of police inspector Giovanni Lizzio.
As leader of the Santapaola-Ercolano clan from the 1970s onward, he consolidated control over public contracts, extortion rackets and drug trafficking in eastern Sicily. Nicknamed “the hunter” for his passion for shooting, he also cultivated business ventures and relationships beyond the criminal underworld, strengthening his grip on the local economy.
His name is tied to the bloody Mafia wars that ravaged Catania in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly clashes with rival boss Alfio Ferlito and the Cursoti, Cappello and Pillera clans—conflicts that left hundreds dead. An ally of the Corleonesi faction led by Totò Riina, Santapaola backed the bombing strategy of the early 1990s, though investigators said he tried to avoid high-profile killings in his own territory to limit state scrutiny.
After 11 years on the run, he was arrested on May 18, 1993, in a farmhouse near Mazzarrone, outside Catania. He spent most of the following decades in maximum-security detention. Repeated requests to ease his prison conditions on health grounds were rejected amid suspicions he still exerted influence over the clan from behind bars.