Italian police combed through the small anonymous building in a small town in Sicily on Tuesday where Italy’s most wanted mafia godfather, Matteo Messina Denaro, was hiding, until his arrest on Monday in Palermo after 30 years on the run .
The hiding place of Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, is in Campobello di Mazara, a small town of 10,000 inhabitants about ten kilometers from his stronghold of Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani, where he was born and cut his teeth. .
Law enforcement raided the small two-story apartment building painted yellow. The godfather would have stayed there for a long time in a comfortable and tastefully furnished apartment. Inside, investigators found no weapons, only perfumes and luxury clothes.
The small building is placed under the permanent surveillance of the police who prevent anyone from approaching. Contacted by AFP, the carabinieri refused to give details.
To his neighbors, Matteo Messina Denaro introduced himself as Andrea Bonafede, with a valid identity card, and claimed to be a doctor.
After his arrest, he was transported on Monday evening by military helicopter to Abruzzo, a region east of Rome overlooking the Adriatic Sea, where he was imprisoned in the high security prison in L’Aquila. .
Important protections
The journey of Matteo Messina Denaro, a cruel killer at the head of an economic empire, follows in the footsteps of the great historical leaders of Cosa Nostra, Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who died in prison in 2017 and 2016 respectively.
He was arrested Monday morning on the sidelines of a medical visit to the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, a renowned establishment where he was treated, under an assumed name, for colon cancer. His attending physician, 70-year-old Alfonso Tumbarello, is under investigation.
He was very well dressed and wore a luxury watch worth between 30 and 35,000 euros. During his run, he “benefited from significant protections and the investigation is focusing on these protections”, said Monday evening the head of the Palermo prosecutor’s office Maurizio De Lucia during a press conference.
The investigation will have to determine if “the last godfather of the Corleone clan” – a clan made famous in the cinema by The Godfather — remained on the island throughout his escape or whether he also stayed abroad.
On the list drawn up by the Ministry of the Interior of the six most wanted criminals in Italy, Matteo Messina Denaro, born in April 1962, occupied the first place.
He had been sentenced in absentia in 2000 to life imprisonment for murder, and in 2020 for the attack on anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, assassinated on the orders of Cosa Nostra in 1992.
Matteo Messina Denaro is one of the last great figures of Cosa Nostra, largely decimated by the relentless operations of the state after the assassination of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
According to the daily Il Messaggerothe wealth accumulated by the boss would reach “up to 4 billion euros”, obtained through drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.