He is fugitive since 1998 and known with the nickname  'il pacchione' (fat man). MOTISI is wanted as a leading member of the mafia style criminal organization called "Cosa Nostra" as well as for having been sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of murder and massacre.

In particular, he was recognized as the perpetrator of the murder of several members of the italian police forces and in 1985 he was one of the perpetrators of the massacre in Palermo in which the MOTISI, together with a commando of nine killers, killed the Head of the investigative unit of the National Police and one of his escort police officers, firing more than two hundred Kalashnikov rounds.