‘Like being on a rollercoaster’: the man who caught Sicily’s last mafia boss

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...e-man-who-caught-sicilys-last-mafia-boss

MAFIA
Messina Denaro's self-esteem, here is the phrase on his key ring: "You are the legend"
by Laura Spano
February 13, 2023
mafia, Matteo Messina Denaro, Trapani, Chronicle

Matteo Messina Denaro had such self-esteem that he almost believed himself a god. He knew he was adored by those closest to him and what betrays his personality and his boundless ego is the key ring he kept in his pocket at the time of his arrest, a leather string with this phrase printed on it: «The man, the myth, you are the legend." The wiretaps collected by investigators over the years demonstrate, moreover, how much for his accomplices "u Sicco" was a man to adore.

"We must adore him - his most faithful accomplices said intercepted - because it is from him that good comes". And in this regard the former head of the Trapani mobile squad Giuseppe Linares said of him in 2009 at the end of one of the many operations to make scorched earth on the scarlet primrose: «Messina Denaro represents the synthesis link of an ancient way of being mobster. But he is recognized as the new man, almost like a deity. In the wiretaps we have heard: "We must adore u siccu. Not only because he is a hierarchical superior, but because he represents something more" ». And in recent years there have been many writings praising the mafia boss.

Matteo Messina Denaro has always considered himself a superior being and he was probably considered as such, as demonstrated by that sentence on the leather string, printed by himself or donated by one of his accomplices. And the disease hadn't affected his sense of omnipotence.

Monday, February 13, 2023
In the L'Aquila prison, the boss answered some questions, in the presence of his lawyer
Matteo Messina Denaro was questioned by the Palermo prosecutors: the content of the hearing is top secret
Matteo Messina Denaro answered the questions of the Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia and the deputy Paolo Guido:the two Sicilian prosecutors stayed in the prison of L'Aquila for about three hours, but the meeting with the fugitive captured by the Ros on 16 January , in the presence of the lawyer Lorenza Guttadauro lasted just over an hour. It is not known , at the moment, what concerned the hearing of the prisoner, who is restricted to 41 bis, in a hard prison regime.

It is the first interrogation just under a month after the arrest of the former super fugitive, which took place in Palermo on 16 January. The content of the interrogation between the public prosecutor, Maurizio de Lucia, and the deputy, Paolo Guido, and the boss, in the presence of his trusted lawyer, his niece Lorenza Guttadauro, is top secret: "I saw it in good condition , at least apparently, considering the state it is in", says the deputy prosecutor Paolo Guido reached by telephone from AGI. The investigations by the Palermo prosecutor continue unabated.

Not enough news about this, everything has gone quiet since they got him. Even though he’s 41bis he’s got to be content with how long he had on the outside. He was a fugitive from his late 20s, now he is a dying man in his 60s. Fascinating how he lasted so long, want to read more about how he done it all those years

Same as Provenzano,Riina, Motisi who is still on the run , too much corruption , connections to masonic lodges in South Italy who are very powerful and so on.

Traces of Matteo Messina Denaro’s passage over the years have been collected in various parts of Italy and the world. The certain fact is that he spent at least the last two years of his thirty-year fugitive in Sicily, in the Trapani area, at his “home”. But before? This is one of the main questions that the investigators ask themselves after the capture of the last of the Corleonesi and one of the leads would lead not very far away, but just beyond the Strait, or in Calabria, where the mafioso could also count on the support of members of the ‘Ndrangheta.

It is a hypothesis, the one on which the prosecutor is working, suggestive but which also rests on concrete elements, which have emerged in the investigations carried out in all these years on the account of what until 16 January last was the most wanted man in Italy . It is ascertained, for example, that in the past there were agreements between the two criminal organizations in relation to drug trafficking. The point of reference in Cosa Nostra was Messina Denaro. The intention, according to the collaborators of justice, would even have been to become “a single family” for business in the northern territories, in particular in Piedmont.

“Matteo was in Calabria and is back” was said later in an interception of a blitz a few years ago. Beyond the Strait, therefore, the boss could have counted on level relationships dating back over time, even more than twenty years ago, and a good safety net.

Furthermore, Calabria, also from a geographical and therefore logistical point of view, would have had many advantages for a wanted Sicilian: easy to evade controls to move from one region to another and return “home” in a very short time, also so as not to completely lose power over its own territory.
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Motisi if still alive must be shaking a little and heightening security. He has just moved up on a dwindling list of police targets. The ultimate ghost MMD has been caught, Motisi would be a minor news story in comparison meaning anyone can be got

I think Messina Denaro gave himself up, and remember there was all of this big talk about the Mafia’s death when Toto Riina was caught, and the same thing happened when Bernardo Provenzano was captured.

I tend to agree that it seems too “convenient” after all that time. The story they’ve given is plausible but maybe too convenient. And they catch him ill and potentially at the end of his life… Seems like a perfectly packaged story.

I don't think he gave himself up directly he had been ill for a long time and was treated in the clinic in Palermo for over a year, it was just a matter of time investigators would found out. I do believe Matteo was aware his run from jusitce was near his end.

Things Baiardo said convince me there were dealings with the state/police. There is too many coincidences, he even said date of his arrest.

After 30 years on the run you don't gave yourself up to the state.

I do believe that in the last months when they already tracked him down there have been talks with his people.

Yeah, arrested exactly 30 years after Riina. Sure, he didn't give himself up and they didn't already know where he was for a long time. And the Tooth Fairy is real too.

He had no choice! From wiretaps they knew he had cancer and was treated somewhere.
So they knew his whereabouts pretty quick he couldn't run anymore he is too sick and needs chemo they just waited for the right moment to arrest him and that was 30 years after Riina.

He was still well-protected, both criminally and politically. I actually had someone on Facebook argue with me saying that these guys can last decades on the run without any political connections, all they need is money and criminal contacts. What a bunch of absolute horse shit!

Matteo Messina Denaro's audios tell the story of the boss's illness:

"My body has betrayed me"

There has been a lot of talk about the messages in which Diabolik attacks Zelensky and sides with Putin.

The more intimate ones, on the other hand, talk about something completely different. And in particular of the disease condition for colorectal cancer that hit the Boss. Who is now in the condition in which many sick people find themselves: "My body has betrayed me"; «let us take care of ourselves and see where we arrive»; “I know what you're going through,” she tells her friend. To which she finally dedicates Gnarls Barkley's Crazy .

“Let's take care of ourselves and see where we get. After all, we don't know anything about the future» is the first message from the boss. Which in the subsequent exchange of messages he says «My body has betrayed me. I still can't get over it. I can't stand this body anymore.' Then he adds something significant: «I had a beautiful life. I didn't foresee what is happening and I can't accept it."


The other audio instead show the Boss talking about himself. «I generally avoid making myself known. Even from my mom. I am like that. I'm like a cat. With myself, mostly. When people study me and guess, shit, I get annoyed like a beast ».

Finally, the last message to fellow chemotherapy ladies. This time he plays the song "Crazy". « My heroes had the heart / To lose their lives out on a limb / And all I remember / Is thinking, I want to be like them », say the words.

“Why instead of supplying weapons, western states don't tell this buffoonish president (Zelensky, ed ) to resign, fix things and provide humanitarian aid? ”. “ They want us to understand that Russia is wrong, but they are not wrong. It's not Putin who wants to put missiles in America, it's the other way around. If Putin weren't a nuclear power, America would have already bombed him , the speech doesn't start now, but in 2014, when they fomented a coup, this buffoon came up... and they've been killing people for 8 years in Donbass" .
These are the words of the massacre boss Matteo Messina Denaro contained in various audios aired in the last episode of It's not the Arena , on La7 , conducted by journalist Massimo Giletti .

Italy’s Most Wanted Mafia Boss Set For High-End Movie Following Arrest After 30 Years on the Run
Nick Vivarelli
Thu, February 23, 2023 at 11:36 AM GMT+1·2 min read

The story of Italy’s most-wanted Mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, whose recent arrest by police in Palermo after 30 years on the run made global headlines, is set to become a big-budget film.

Rome-based producer Marco Belardi (“Perfect Strangers”) has acquired rights to ace anti-Mafia journalist Lirio Abbate’s book about the Cosa Nostra boss. The book is titled “U Siccu,” which is Sicilian dialect that translates as “The Skinny One.”

Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January by dozens of police officers outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under false identity.

Belardi’s company Bamboo Productions has announced plans for the tale of this elusive top mafioso, convicted of masterminding some of Italy’s most heinous slayings – including the killings of prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, and the grisly murder of a Mafia turncoat’s young son, who was strangled before his body was dissolved in a vat of acid – to become “a major motion picture” directed by a still unspecified top Italian helmer, it said in a statement.

Abbate’s book, which is published by Rizzoli and has sold well in Italy, is a portrait of Messina Denaro that delves into various aspects of his life and personality including his love of luxury from an early age; his womanizing amid Palermo’s nightlife; and his being a ruthless killer who rose up the ranks to become the operative who implemented Cosa Nostra’s decision in the 1990s to kill the country’s top anti-Mafia prosecutors with consecutive bombings in 1992 as well as dozens of other murders. It also covers his role as father and his ability as a fugitive and as a businessman who forged ties with politics, the financial world, and Italy’s Freemasonry.

Bamboo Production was launched last year by Belardi, who formerly headed film and TV company Lotus Production, which besides producing globally adapted megahit “Perfect Strangers,” also spawned a steady stream of other hits such as Gabriele Muccino’s “There Is No Place Like Home,” which in 2018 pulled in more than $10 million locally, and has been spun off recently into a successful TV series for Sky.

Denaro's expenses were up to 15 thousand euros per month to maintain a very high standard of living. But who physically brought the Money? And where did that river of money come from? The close circle of historical supporters and the family of the mafia boss is being investigated.

They will also go after his assets he's worth millions.

Worth millions? More like hundreds of millions or even more. They've already seized a few billion in assets.

I was a little conservative lol.

Four billion euros. It is the estimate (probably by default) of the assets already seized and confiscated from Matteo Messina Denaro.

The sociologist and journalist Mauro Rostagno was killed on 26 September 1988 in Valderice at the behest of Ciccio Messina Denaro, father of Matteo. Rostagno was killed for having unveiled the links between the Mafia, Freemasonry and politics in the Trapani area. Among the many delicate investigations that he dealt with there was a particularly burning one, concerning Gladio, the paramilitary organization.

Nino Giuffrè explained it although not far from Palermo, a one hour drive, Trapani was another mafia. A meeting place for freemasons and rogue intelligence. A very powerful lodge was Scontrino.

The alleged pact between the State and Mafia fell apart in 2002. Cosa Nostra had achieved nothing. There were no revisions of Mafia trials, no changes in the law of asset seizures and no changes in the harsh prison laws (41 bis). But I do think after 2002 the freemasons have only become more powerful also because Provenzano led a moderate mafia that is what the freemasons wanted.

But they still didn't catch Bernardo Provenzano for another 4 years, and Matteo Messina Denaro for another 21 years. That takes a lot of political backing, among other things.

Yes don't forget Silvio Berlusconi was Prime Minister of Italy three times: from April 27, 1994 to January 17, 1995, from June 11, 2001 to May 17, 2006 and from May 8, 2008 to November 16, 2011.

I believe that the criminal system is weaker than in the 1980s and 1990s when the Freemasons could count on the mafia to kill anyone with impunity

I wouldn't necessarily say with impunity, because it all caught up with them eventually. The reason the Mafia isn't killing like that anymore, especially members of the State, is because they're working on becoming one with the State again. Their weapons today are infiltration and subversion of the political and business spheres rather than bullets and bombs. I'm really amazed at how Cosa Nostra really has a grip on the island's underworld and everyone listens to whoever it is in charge. There's rarely ever a Mafia killing in Sicily anymore, unlike other Italian regions like Puglia, Campania, and Calabria.