With the death this morning of Matteo Messina Denaro, considered the last “boss of bosses” of Cosa Nostrathe mafia of Sicily (southern Italy), arrested on January 16, 2023 after 30 years on the run from justice, the only person who kept the secrets of the criminal organization that was the protagonist of the attacks in the 90s and the alleged negotiations with the State.
Messina Denaro died at 61 years old of age in the L’Aquila hospital (center) because of the colon cancer he suffered from.
Italy’s most wanted criminal until his arrest had entered into an irreversible coma in the last hours and treatment and food had been withdrawn.
After being arrested, he was taken to the maximum security prison in L’Aquila (central Italy) where He never collaborated with Justice, nor did he appear in the proceedings opened against him., and thus took the secrets of Cosa Nostra to the grave. “I will never regret it,” were the words he told the investigators and that was it.
The so-called “last godfather” He had been detained at the private clinic “la Maddalena” in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, where he had gone for medical treatment with the arrogance of knowing he was protected by a network that had allowed him to be hidden from the world for 30 years in his native Sicily.
The fugitive, known by the nicknames “U siccu” (the thin one, in the Sicilian dialect) or “Diabolik” because he liked the well-known thief from the famous comic, was born in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano and His father, “Don Ciccio”, was already the head of the Trapani mafia.
For more than 30 years he was searched all over the world, He was located in Barcelona for an eye operation and other trips were documented, but “the godfather” resided, at least for the last few years, in Campobello di Mazara, in the province of Trapani, just eight kilometers from his hometown Castelvetrano, surrounded by people who covered him for years and by the “omerta”, the mafia silence, from the rest of the population.
After his arrest, several people from the coverage network were arrested, members of his family like his sister or unexpected citizens who took care of his needs over the years.
Messina Denaro rose through the ranks in Cosa Nostra and investigators considered that he became the “boss of bosses” of the Sicilian mafia from his hiding place after the arrest of Toto Riina, just 30 years ago, and later of Bernardo Provenzano, who He was on the run from Justice for 38 years.
Messina Denaro He had been on the run 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 beginning of his life as a fugitive from Justice. “You will hear about me (implying that I knew that soon after her name would be associated with serious bloodshed) and you will paint me as a demon, but it is all falsehoods,” she wrote.
The last sentence considers him the mastermind of the attacks that caused the death of the two anti-mafia magistrates in 1992 Paolo Borsellino and Giovani Falcone, his wife, Francesca Morvillo, and eight escort agents.
Besides, He accumulated several life sentences for dozens of murdersamong them that of little Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of the collaborator of justice strangled and dissolved in acid after almost two years of captivity.
In these years some details of his life have become known, such as that, despite being the most wanted man in Italy, this did not prevent him from traveling to Barcelona to have eye surgery, as has been demonstrated in various investigations.
The power of the considered last boss of Cosa Nostra, the last of the “Corleoneses”, is demonstrated not only in his extensive network of contacts and front men that he has acquired in recent years, but also in It can also be quantified in the more than 4,000 million euros that have been confiscated from those around them.
According to the researchers, Messina Denaro continued from clandestinity giving orders in Cosa Nostraas proven by the “pizzini”, the pieces of paper with which its members communicate, intercepted by the Italian Police in recent years.
Related news
Although his figure has always been surrounded by legends, researchers suggested that the elusive “capo” of Costa Nostra He was a very different personality from the rest of the mafia bosses like Riina and Provenzano, of little intelligence and hidden for years in the middle of the countryside in terrible conditions.
About Messina Denaro they spoke of his great intelligence and that He loved luxury, travel, cars and clothes, and this was confirmed after his arrest.