Italian police seize mafia boss after 30 years on the run 02:52
Italy stated Thursday it was seizing greater than 200 million euros ($232 million) in belongings belonging to late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro derived from drug trafficking and reinvested in Europe and past.
The “huge fortune” of the ruthless Cosa Nostra boss — a legendary determine lastly captured in 2023 in Palermo after three a long time on the run — had been amassed for the reason that Nineteen Eighties, Italy’s monetary police stated in an announcement.
Messina Denaro, the pinnacle of Sicily’s Castelvetrano clan, who had six life sentences to his identify, died in jail just a few months after his arrest at age 61.
The investigation by the Guardia di Finanza uncovered “huge sums of cash derived from drug trafficking reinvested in quite a few European and non-European international locations,” police stated.
Belongings have been being seized in Andorra, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Monaco, Spain and Switzerland, in addition to Italy, police stated.
Drug cash was “reintroduced into the authorized economic system” by a variety of belongings, together with luxurious trip resorts on Spain’s Costa del Sol, financial institution accounts, securities portfolios and company holding firms, they stated.
Three folks have been arrested within the probe.
Italy’s high anti-Mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, hailed the operation as of “nice strategic significance.”
“It isn’t merely a matter of figuring out and seizing a good portion of the illicit wealth accrued over a long time of associated trafficking and parasitic exploitation of the territory — Sicily particularly — from a corporation as highly effective because the Cosa Nostra,” Melillo stated Thursday throughout a press convention in Palermo.
However the operation additionally managed to “delay and hinder” Cosa Nostra’s try to rebuild its construction after the loss of life of the highly effective Messina Denaro, he stated.
Police used planes, drones and thermal scanners within the investigation. The scanners have been used “to detect hid areas and hidden cavities,” they stated.
The eight international firms recognized in the course of the probe have been primarily used for actual property investments and belongings administration.
Most of the 22 actual property properties discovered to be linked to Messina Denaro have been “real luxurious resorts situated between Marbella, Benahavis and Puerto Banus, in among the most unique areas of the Costa del Sol,” police stated.
30 years on the run
Messina Denaro was thought of “Mafia the Aristocracy” — the final of three high Mafia bosses, the others being the infamous Salvatore “Toto” Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, each of whom additionally eluded seize for many years, persevering with to dwell clandestine lives in Sicily. Riina, the so-called “boss of bosses,” was on the run for 23 years earlier than his arrest in 1993. Provenzano spent 38 years as a fugitive and was lastly captured in 2006.
One of the crucial infamous bosses of Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in “The Godfather” motion pictures, Messina Denaro had an extended string of crimes to his identify.
He was convicted of involvement within the 1992 high-profile murders of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and for lethal bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993.
One among his life sentences was for ordering the kidnapping and subsequent strangulation of the 12-year-old son of a witness within the Falcone case, whose physique was then dissolved in acid.
After disappearing in 1993, Messina Denaro managed to elude authorities for the following 30 years because the Italian state cracked down on the Sicilian mob.
However he remained the highest identify on Italy’s most-wanted listing and more and more turned a determine of legend.
It was his determination to hunt therapy for most cancers beneath a false identify that led to his seize. He was arrested on Jan. 16, 2023, when he visited a clinic in Palermo.
Italian media reported Messina Denaro was being handled for colon most cancers on the non-public hospital “La Maddalena” beneath the false identify “Andrea Buonafede.” Experiences stated he didn’t resist arrest and he was taken to an undisclosed location by police.
Italian mafia chief Matteo Messina Denaro (proper), some of the needed mafia bosses, is seen after he was arrested by Italian safety forces in Palermo, Italy, January 16, 2023. / Credit score: Italian Gendarmerie (Carabinieri) Press Service/Handout/Anadolu Company/Getty
In response to eyewitnesses, when passers-by realized safety forces had apprehended the infamous crime determine, folks cheered and applauded the police.
He was discovered to have been staying close to his hometown of Castelvetrano in western Sicily, his fugitive way of life facilitated by his sister and shut confidantes.
With their assist, Messina Denaro additionally was capable of proceed to speak with, and direct, his Mafia operatives.
Messina Denaro continued to obtain most cancers therapy whereas incarcerated at L’Aquila, however he was later moved to hospital in August that yr, beneath heavy safety.
He died on Sept. 25, 2023.
“You should not deny prayers to anybody, however I am unable to say I’m sorry,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini wrote on Instagram on the time.