the sicilian Matteo Messina Denaro _nicknamed Diabolik, the last godfather of the feared Cosa Nostra mafia_, was arrested this Monday after having lived 30 years in hiding.
Born on April 26, 1962 in Castelvetrano, in southwestern Sicily, he had been part of the organization since childhood thanks to his father, Don Ciccio, leader of the local clan. He knew how to shoot since he was 14 years old and committed his first homicide at the age of 18.
His first problems with the law began in 1989, when he was accused of mafia association for his participation in the bloody fight between two rival clans. After spending several years in the public eye, being accused of various crimes, in mid-1993 he chose to disappear and became the invisible leader of a million-dollar criminal organization. His appearance was unknown to most Italians.
In any case, it is believed that this criminal, hidden for three decades in Sicily, did not use cell phones or electronic communicationsbut he continued issuing orders to his subordinates under the pseudonym “Alessio”, through the system pizzinileaving little folded paper notes under a rock on a Sicilian farmhouse.
These little pieces of paper are easily hidden, to the point that the messengers pass them to each other in a handshake. In addition, they can be eliminated by swallowing them without special difficulty.
It is not the first time that this archaic messaging system has been known to work for a mobster to lead his criminal organization for decades. It had already been done by the Italian mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, leader of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra from 1993 until his arrest in 2006.
Bernardo Provenzano, who died in July 2016, also did not use the telephone for his communications to manage the criminal organization, including to call his wife and children, used pizziniwhere he wrote his instructions in code of numbers, letters and biblical quotes.
That system was very safe for him for many years, until he the police intercepted one of them and followed his trail to the house where the boss was hiding.
Arrest of Matteo Messina
Matteo Messina Denaro was detained in a private clinicwhere he had been going for a year to receive chemotherapy treatment against cancer.
“He was undoubtedly wearing luxury clothes,” Paolo Guidi, coordinator of the team of anti-mafia judges in the Sicilian capital, stressed to the press.
“He was wearing a prestigious watch, a ‘jack mille’, of a value of about 30-35,000 euros (about the same figure in dollars)”, the magistrate stressed.
Since the 2000s, the Italian police have multiplied arrests and confiscations of mafia assets, a strategy that has borne fruit in breaking the support network they have traditionally relied on. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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