Santo Araniti is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

n mafia. He was a fugitive since 1983 and included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy until his capture in May 1994.

Criminal career

He started his criminal career as an associate of Domenico Tripodo

Domenico Tripodo

Domenico Tripodo was an Italian criminal and a historical and charismatic boss of the 'Ndrangheta dominating the city of Reggio Calabria and the surrounding areas...

 – the boss the city of Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

Reggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, southern Italy, and is the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria and seat of the Council of Calabrian government.Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian...

 and the surrounding areas. He became a member of La Santa in the 1970s. He was a key ally of the De Stefano brothers

De Stefano 'ndrina

The De Stefano 'ndrina is one of the most powerful clans of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. The 'ndrina hailed from the Archi neighbourhood in Reggio Calabria. Several of its members were included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy...

, in the war against their former boss Tripodo in the mid 1970s. In 1985, at the start of the Second 'Ndrangheta war between the De Stefano and the Serraino, Condello

Pasquale Condello

Pasquale Condello is an Italian criminal known as a member of the 'Ndrangheta. He is also known as "Il supremo" for his role at the top of the crime syndicate. He was a fugitive since 1990 and included in the list of most wanted fugitives in Italy until his capture in February 2008...

 and Imerti

Antonio Imerti

Antonio Imerti , also known as "Nanu feroce" , is an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia...

 clans, he chose the side of the Condello-Imerti alliance. The bloody six-year war clan left 621 deaths.

In 1990, he was sentenced to nine years for international drug trafficking. Later he received a life sentence for ordering the killing in 1989 of Lodovico Ligato

Lodovico Ligato

Lodovico Ligato was an Italian Christian Democrat politician from Reggio Calabria and the former head of the Italian State Railways...

, a former head of the Italian state railways.

Number one

For a while, he was considered to be the "number one" of the 'Ndrangheta and the head of La Provincia, a provincial commission of the 'Ndrangheta, that had been created as the result of negotiations to end years of inter family violence.

On May 24, 1994, police arrested him in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. He was incarcerated under the in the harsh article 41-bis prison regime

Article 41-bis prison regime

In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations...

. In November 2008 he was released from the harsh regime but remained in prison.