Italy: Messina Denaro, head of Cosa Nostra arrested after 30 years of searching

Considered the head of chiefs Cosa Nostrathe Sicilian mafia (south of Italy) and the country’s most wanted criminal, on the run for 30 years, Matteo Messina Denarowas arrested this Monday by the carabinieri, Italian media reported.

The arrest took place in a private clinic in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, where he went for treatment.

The media added that the capture of a mafioso sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1993 Cosa Nostra attacks and numerous murders came after the intensification of investigations by Palermo prosecutors Maurizio de Lucia and MP Paolo Guido.

Born in Castelvetrano, in the Sicilian province of Trapani, Messina Denaro, now 60, is due to serve multiple life sentences for the 1993 attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan that killed ten people.

He is also credited as the mastermind behind the bombs that killed two. anti-mafia magistrates in 1992 Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and eight escort agents.

In the last sentence, the role messina denaro in the so-called Cosa Nostra attack strategy to put pressure on the state in the 1990s and proves his involvement in both the 1992 attacks claimed by “Toto” Riina and the 1993 bombings ordered by another mafia boss, Bernardo . Provence.

most wanted in italy

It was after these attacks messina denaroborn in Castelvetrano (Trapani), disappeared, and after the arrest of Riina and Provenzano, it was believed that he was still pulling the strings of Cosa Nostra from an unknown location.

Despite being the most wanted man in Italy, this did not stop him from traveling to Barcelona, ​​Spain for eye surgery, as various investigations revealed.

The power of the last head Cosa Nostrathe last of the “Corleonese” is demonstrated not only by his extensive network of contacts and figureheads that he has acquired over the years, but can also be quantified in over 4 billion euros confiscated from his entourage.

There have only been a handful of photographs of him from 30 years ago, and the latest portrait of the robot includes new details confided to police by some of the detainees around him that are incredibly similar to those seen in the photograph released today. authorities, in which he is seen in a car with the carabinieri who arrested him.

In this image, he appears older, with dyed black hair, slightly heavier, but most of all, without the sunglasses he was known to wear due to his vision problems.

Matteo Messina Denaro, the last godfather

With arrest Matteo Messina Denaro the Sicilian Mafia (southern Italy) and Italy’s most wanted man completes a story of blood, power and secrecy that has protected him for 30 years.

The 60-year-old “last godfather”, known by the nicknames “U siccu” (thin, in the Sicilian dialect) or “Diabolik” because he liked the famous thief from the famous comic book, was born in the Sicilian city of Castelvetrano, and his father, “Don Ciccio”, was already the head of the Trapani mafia.

Little by little he rose to positions in Cosa Nostra and the investigators considered that he became the “boss of bosses” of the Sicilian mafia already from his hiding place after the arrest of Toto Riina, only 30 years ago, and later Bernardo Provenzano, who was on the run from justice for 38 years.

messina denaro He has been a fugitive since the summer of 1993, when, in a letter written to his then girlfriend Angela after the mafia massacres in Rome, Milan and Florence, he announced the start of his life as a fugitive from justice. “You will hear from me (implying that he knew his name would soon be associated with serious bloodshed) and be depicted as a demon, but all of this is a lie,” he wrote.

According to the researchers, messina denaro continued secretly issuing orders to Cosa Nostraas evidenced by the “pizzini”, pieces of paper with which its participants communicate, intercepted by the Italian police in recent years.

Although his figure has always been surrounded by legends, researchers have pointed out that the elusive “capo” Costa Nostra He was very different from the rest of the mafia bosses such as Riina and Provenzano, had low intelligence and hid in the middle of the countryside in terrible conditions for years.

From messina denaro there was talk of his great intelligence and that he loved luxury, travel, cars and clothes, and now, after his arrest, many of these legends, built up over the years, can be cleared up. EFE