Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested in Italy, the carabinieri taunted him

ITALY – The carabinieri’s sacred insult to a man who was on the run from them for 30 years. The day after the arrest of Italy’s most wanted mobster, Matteo Messina Denaro, the carabinieri (the equivalent of the French police) posted on their Twitter account a photo of one of their cars parked in Castelvetrano, his birthplace.

“Hello from Castelvetrano”, ironically wrote the Carabinieri this Tuesday morning, January 17, without referring directly to Matteo Messina Denaro. Double insult: carabinieri car sitting in the square right in front of the church… purgatory.

A few kilometers from Castelvetrano, in Campobello di Mazara, the godfather of the mafia has been hiding for several years. Arrested on Monday 17 in Palermo then transported by military helicopter to Abruzzo, a region east of Rome overlooking the Adriatic Sea, he is imprisoned in the high security prison in L’Aquila.

Andrea Bonafede is actually Matteo Messina Denaro

In Campobello di Mazara, police raided a small two-story yellow-painted residential building where his godfather was said to have lived. as you can see in the pictures from Corriere della Sera under. The apartment is comfortable and tastefully furnished. Inside, investigators found no weapons, only perfume and luxurious clothing.

The small building is placed under permanent police surveillance preventing anyone from approaching. Contacted by AFP, the carabinieri declined to provide details. To his neighbors, Matteo Messina Denaro introduced himself as Andrea Bonafede, with a valid identity card, and claimed to be a doctor.

The journey of Matteo Messina Denaro, a ruthless assassin at the head of an economic empire, follows in the footsteps of the great historical leaders of Cosa Nostra, Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who died in prison in 2017 and 2016 respectively.

The arrest was made after undergoing a medical examination

He was arrested Monday morning on the sidelines of a medical visit to the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, a high-profile site where he was being treated, under an assumed name, for colon cancer. The doctor who treated him, Alfonso Tumbarello, 70 years old, is under investigation.

He was very well dressed and wore a luxury watch worth between 30 and 35,000 euros. During his escape, he “has enjoyed significant protection and investigations are focused on those protections”underlined Monday night head of Palermo parquet floors Maurizio De Lucia during a press conference.

The investigation must determine whether “the last godfather of the Corleone clan” – the clan became famous in the movies by Godfather – stay on the island during his escape or if he also lives abroad.

In the list of the six most wanted criminals in Italy compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Matteo Messina Denaro, born in April 1962, ranks first. He has been sentenced in absentia to 2000 to life in prison for murder, and in 2020 for the attack on anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, who was killed on orders of Cosa Nostra in 1992.

Matteo Messina Denaro was one of the last major figures of Cosa Nostra, largely destroyed by the state’s incessant operations following the murders of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

According to daily IlMessaggerothe wealth accumulated by the boss will be achieved “up to 4 billion euros”obtained through drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.

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