Italian police have arrested the country's most wanted mafioso.

Matteo Messina Denaro, head of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, was arrested by special forces on Monday, the Carabinieri said.

Messina Denaro has been on the run for three decades.

The mafia hunters managed to arrest him in a private clinic in Palermo, where he wanted to be treated.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni spoke of a "great success for the state, which shows that it has never been defeated by the mafia".

Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for several murders.

He is credited with being involved in the deadly 1992 bombings of mafia hunters Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

He was considered a confidant of former bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore "Totò" Riina.