Luxury clothing, Viagra found in Italian mafia boss’s safehouse

Rome:

Italian police searched the Sicilian apartment on Tuesday where fugitive mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro Prada shoes, condoms and Viagra were found – but no weapons, media reports said.

The 60-year-old, who was detained on Monday while visiting a health clinic in Palermo, was living in the small town of Campobello di Mazara, just up the road from his hometown of Castelvetrano in western Sicily.

Police officers guarded the entrance to the street leading to the simple yellow apartment building.

Inside, officers found a well-stocked fridge, dozens of pairs of shoes, clothing from major luxury brands, condoms and Viagra pills, media reports said.

Messina Denaro was arrested on Monday morning at the private La Maddalena health clinic, where he had an appointment for colon cancer treatment.

He was using a false identity, calling himself Andrea Bonafede, and apparently told his neighbors he was a doctor.

A powerful boss of the Sicilian Mafia Cosa Nostra who inspired the hit “Godfather” films, he had not been seen in public since 1993.

According to anti-mafia investigators, he was an active boss for the Trapani region – including resolving disputes and making top mafia appointments – beyond his own territory.

When he was arrested he was well dressed and had an expensive watch. He was then taken by military helicopter to the central eastern region of Abruzzo, where officials said he would be held at a high-security prison in L’Aquila.

health problems

Messina was one of the Denaro mob’s most brutal bosses, whose convictions included a life sentence in absentia in 2020 for the 1992 murder of anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone.

He was a key figure in some of the Mafia’s most violent episodes, which triggered a crackdown by the authorities that today has been greatly weakened.

Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia said on Monday that he “enjoyed a high-level of security” while he was on the run, and the investigation is now focused on that security.

Reports say that the mobster’s doctor, Alfonso Tumbarlo, is one of those being investigated.

After years of escaping captivity, it was Messina Denaro’s illness that proved his undoing.

Investigators heard his family members and his friends in wiretapped conversations, which discussed eye problems along with the medical problems of an unnamed man with cancer.

Detectives were certain they were talking about Messina Denaro, who was believed to have had an eye operation in the 1990s.

“We had clear information that the fugitive had health problems … that he was going to a health facility to treat his illness,” Special Operations Commander Pasquale Angelosanto told a press conference on Monday.

“So we worked to identify people … who had access to treatment for suspected malformations,” he said.

king of cosa nostra

Investigators have claimed in the past that Messina Denaro was based in Sicily, but traveled widely in mainland Italy and abroad. Prosecutors declined to comment Monday.

But experts said he needed to stay close to home to maintain his power and security, like top Mafia boss Toto Reina, who was arrested in 1993 after two decades in Palermo. Reena died in 2017.

According to the Il Messaggero newspaper, Messina Denaro had assets of up to four billion euros, acquired through drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.

Roberto Saviano, a journalist who exposed the inner workings of the Naples-based Camorra mafia, described Messina Denaro as the “king” of the Cosa Nostra.

“He was the last of the mass murderers who carried out the violent massacres of the Cosa Nostra,” Saviano told AFP.

“After which the organization, precisely because of those decisions, weakened over the years”, becoming “less financially strong”, he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)