Italian police have arrested Mafia boss Michele Zagaria, the most senior head of the powerful Casalesi clan and one of the country's most wanted fugitives.

Police arrested Zagaria Wednesday in an underground bunker in his hometown of Casapesenna, near Naples in southern Italy.

The 53-year-old Zagaria, who has been on the run for the last 16 years, was a top boss in the Camorra or Naples Mafia. He has already been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for crimes including murder, extortion and kidnapping.

While the Camorra is based in and around Naples, it has an international network that generates illegal profits through drug trafficking, trash collection, extortion and construction.

Italian Interior Minister Annamaria Cancellieri called the arrest a “huge success” by the state, not only against the Casalesi clan but against the entire Camorra organization.