After three decades on the run, Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the figures of the formidable Sicilian mafia, was arrested on Monday in Palermo.
From our correspondent in Rome, Quentin Raverdy
© Carabinieri/Anadolu Agency via AFP
Published on
VShe images will certainly mark the history of Italy. In the pouring rain, wrapped up in a large coat, his face almost completely hidden by a hat and a pair of glasses, the Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro is in the hands of the carabinieri. It’s the end of thirty years on the run for Italy’s most wanted man. A fugitive “betrayed by his health”, reports today the press, after the arrest, this Monday, of the sexagenarian in a private clinic in Palermo where he was treated – under a false name – for a tumor for a year.
Chance of the calendar or sign of fate, his capture comes the day after the thirtieth anniversary of the arrest of Toto Riina, the bloodthirsty leader of Cosa Nostra, of which Matteo Messina Denaro had become the main heir within the Sicilian criminal organization.
Record ride
Nicknamed “U Siccu” for his eternal thinness, this son of a mafioso from the province of Trapani dragged behind him a heavy CV. Sentenced in absentia to life for around twenty murders, he is notably considered as one of the sponsors of the double attack against judges Falcone and Borsellino, in 1992, and of the murderous attacks perpetrated in Milan, Florence and Rome the year next.
His name is also associated with the martyrdom of the young Giuseppe Di Matteo, 12, kidnapped by Cosa Nostra in an attempt to silence his father – a repentant ex-mafioso – and whose lifeless body was dissolved in acid.
In the sights of justice, Matteo Messina Denaro began his life as a fugitive in June 1993, after the publication of a first arrest warrant for homicides. “A great infamy because I am innocent”, he defends himself in a letter to his fiancée at the time. “Don’t think about me anymore, it’s not worth it… With your heart in pieces. Matteo,” he signs.
For thirty years, we think we see him everywhere: in the four corners of Europe and as far as South America. The investigators, however, do not abandon the Sicilian track, keeping in mind the memory of the mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, captured after a record run (43 years) in a cabin near his native Corleone.
On the lands of Messina Denaro, in Castelvetrano, heaven and earth were moved and more than 200 people – members of his family, relatives, associates – were arrested over the past decade.
“Deviant Freemasonry”
The hunt is made particularly difficult by a “solid loyalty” testified by many small hands of the Sicilian mafia for whom Matteo Messina Denaro constitutes “the most charismatic criminal figure of the Trapani mafia”, recognized in recent years the forces of the ‘order.
Above all, he was able to “benefit from very strong protections”, recently denounced the former assistant prosecutor of Palermo, Teresa Principato, pointing the finger at figures of “deviant Freemasonry”, “politicians in search of the voices of the mafia” and “entrepreneurs from the North” interested in doing business in Sicily.
READ ALSOItaly: the algorithm, this new weapon to track down the mafiaEven with the law on his heels, Matteo Messina Denaro managed to transform the mafia organization of the province of Trapani into a lucrative business, both involved in illegal trafficking and rooted in the legal economy – particularly in the sector of renewable energies – even going so far as to monopolize financial aid dedicated to the victims of the mafia.
But over the years, the noose has tightened. Several billion euros in property have been seized by investigators and many nominees put behind bars. With the capture of the last of the big bosses of Cosa Nostra, this Monday, it is the ultimate stone of a mafia empire which could well collapse.