On the run for 30 years – who is mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro? – The daily newspaper

– You know who I am. I am Matteo Messina Denaro.

Italy’s most wanted mafia boss was on his way to a cafe near a private doctor’s clinic in Palermo, Sicily, when a policeman asked him his name, according to the BBC. Until then, the armed forces had not been sure if the man was actually Messina Denaro, who has been on the run for 30 years.

Messina Denaro, who has claimed to have killed so many people that he could fill an entire cemetery with corpses, was arrested on Monday this week. He had received cancer treatment under a false name at a private doctor’s clinic in Palermo.

The case has received enormous media attention in Italy, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was quick to fly to Palermo to congratulate the police.

But who really is Matteo Messina Denaro?

[ Italias mest etterlyste mafiaboss pågrepet etter 30 år på rømmen ]

– Heinous crimes

“Messina Denaro has committed some of the most violent and horrific crimes Italy can remember,” says journalist Andrea Purgatori to the BBC.

Messina Denaro comes from the town of Castelvetrano near Trapani in the west of Sicily, and is the son of a mafia boss. Messina Denaro (60) has been considered the most powerful figure in the Cosa Nostra mafia, which is based in Sicily.

The mafia boss was nicknamed “U siccu'”, which means the thin one, and “Diabolik”, after an Italian cartoon character who starts out as a thief and anti-hero. The 60-year-old is believed to be the main man behind several attacks the mafia was behind in Italy between 1992 and 1993.

In 2020, Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to life in prison, among other things for the murders of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. The two had important roles in the work to roll up the mafia’s network in the early 1990s.

He is also convicted of the murder of Antonella Bonanno, the pregnant girlfriend of a rival mafia boss. Messina Denaro has also been convicted of complicity in three bomb attacks in Milan, Florence and Rome in 1993. A total of ten people were killed in the attacks where car bombs were used. The bomb in Rome went off outside the house of journalist Maurizio Costanzo, who at the time was a central figure in the fight against the mafia, according to TGSky24.

[ Italias statsminister stevner gravejournalister for retten ]

Brutal murder

He is also convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo. The murder is considered one of the most cruel the mafia boss, together with several others, is said to have ordered, writes newspaper Il Messaggero. Di Matteo was the son of a mafioso who was involved in the murder of, among others, Falcone, but who, after his arrest, stepped over as a witness for the authorities. In revenge, the Mafia kidnapped his 12-year-old son, Giuseppe, in November 1993.

Messina Denaro was part of the gang that held the boy captive in various places around the island while they tried to pressure his father to withdraw his diploma. After over two years in captivity, the boy was killed, and his body dissolved in acid.

– I have read that he is ill. I hope that he lives as long as possible to suffer for a long time, in the same way he imposed on my brother, an innocent boy, says Nicola Di Matteo, Giuseppe’s brother.

Pills, condoms and expensive clothes

After Monday’s arrest, the police searched an apartment where Messina Denaro is said to have lived for at least six months. The apartment is located in the center of the town of Campobello di Mazara in the Trapani area, writes the news agency Ansa, among others. The town is only 8 kilometers from Messina Denaro’s birthplace.

A neighbor has said that he often saw the man, and that they used to greet each other. Inside the apartment, police found designer shoes, luxury clothes, a fridge filled with food, restaurant receipts, sex pills and condoms.

– Matteo Messina Denaro has lived here for at least six months. The building has been nicely renovated, which shows that the fugitive had good financial conditions. Refined furniture of a certain standard, not luxurious, but at a significant economic level, says the local commander of the military police Carabinieri in Trapani, Fabio Bottino.

Mattia Denaro was known for a penchant for fast cars, had many girlfriends and had expensive habits, writes The Guardian. When he was arrested, he is said to have been wearing a watch worth 35,000 euros, over NOK 350,000. Although he was not far from home, he managed to evade capture until now. Several hundred police officers have been looking for him for several years.

– If you asked where Matteo Messina Denaro is, people would say he is either dead or in Trapani province. He was not one of the mafiosi who traveled abroad, to Brazil or Northern Europe. He didn’t need to build himself a bunker like the bosses of the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria. He was protected in his area, says Giacomo di Girolamo, who has written a biography of Messina Denaro.

His status within Cosa Nostra and how much power he should have had has long been debated. Messina Denaro is said to have been the protégé of Salvatore “Totò” Riina, the notorious mafia boss who led the Corleone clan. Riina is said to have said that if something happened to him, “Matteo and Giuseppe know everything”. Giuseppe Graviano was another notorious mafioso.

[ Storslått funn i Italia: – Vil skrive om historien ]

Top secret documents

Finding the place where the wanted mafia boss has lived can be of great importance to the investigation going forward: several pentitii.e. people who were previously part of organized crime, but who cooperate with the police and the authorities to get impunity or a lower sentence, have said that Messina Denaro was sitting on top secret documents belonging to Totò Riina.

So far, it does not appear that important documents were hidden in the building, and the investigators suspect that the “treasure of Messina Denaro” may be hiding in another building, according to Ansa.

Riina was arrested in 1993 after 23 years on Italy’s most wanted list. It was the same year that the Messina Denaro disappeared. The last time the now arrested 60-year-old was observed was in Tuscany in 1993, around the same time that a car bomb detonated outside the Uffizi Museum in Florence. Since then, investigators have only had a phantom image and a few short recordings of his voice to go by. Witnesses have said they have seen him around the world, from Venezuela to the Netherlands.

– It took so long to apprehend him because, as with other mafia bosses, he was protected by a dense network of aides, very powerful and with deep roots in Sicily and elsewhere, says Andrea Purgatori.

[ Slik tar den italienske mafiaen del i kampen mot koronakrisen ]

– Important step

Several have speculated whether the arrest came from a tip-off from Messina Denaro’s co-conspirators, who had decided that the aging boss was no longer useful to them. The police have denied that the arrest was due to a tip.

When they finally managed to apprehend him, it was after long-standing rumors that Messina Denaro was ill. One name stood out in the investigation: Andrea Bonafede. A man with that name is said to have received treatment in Palermo twice, in 2020 and 2021. But the mobile activity of the real Bonafede struck out far away from Palermo on one of the days he is supposed to have been under the knife. The real Bonafede has also been arrested and is being investigated for mafia links.

When police arrived on Monday, Messina Denaro initially tried to get away, but saw more police officers on the scene and did not try to run.

Nino di Mattia, former anti-mafia prosecutor in Palermo, has described the arrest as good news, but that it is important to find out how Messina Denaro managed to be on the run for 30 years. It would be a mistake to think that the fight against the mafia is over, he says.

– Matteo Messina Denaro was clearly the most important mafia member still at large, but we know from experience that Cosa Nostra is able to regroup, reorganize and relaunch itself, he says.

[ Tror Kina-utvikling er umulig å snu: – Begge deler er irreversibelt ]

[ Lege: Dette er helseeffektene av en alkoholfri måned ]

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