The fall of Matteo Messina Denaro, the last godfather

With the arrest this Monday of Matteo Messina Denaro, considered the last “Boss of Bosses” of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia (south of Italy) and the most wanted man in Italy, concludes a story of blood, power, and the secrecy that has protected him for 30 years.

The “last godfather”60, was detained at the private clinic “the Madeleine” from Palermo, the Sicilian capital, where he had gone for medical treatment with the arrogance of knowing that 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 of “U siccu” (the thin one, in Sicilian dialect) or “Diabolik” because he liked the well-known thief from the famous comic, he was born in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano and his father, “Don Ciccio”was already the head of the Trapani mafia.

Little by little he ascended positions in Cosa Nostra and the 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 had been a fugitive 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 from me (implying that he knew his name would soon be associated with serious bloodshed) and paint me as a demon, but they are all falsehoods”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.

In addition, he accumulated several life sentences for dozens of murders, including that of little Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of the justice collaborator 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 undergo eye surgery, as has been shown in various investigations.

The power of the considered last boss of Cosa Nostra, the last of the “Corleoneses”, It is demonstrated not only in its extensive network of contacts and front men that it has procured over the years, but it can also be quantified in the more than 4,000 million euros that has been confiscated from those around it.

According to the investigators, Messina Denaro continued from hiding to issue orders in Cosa Nostra, as evidenced by the “pizzini”, the little pieces of paper with which its members communicate, intercepted by the Italian Police in recent years.

There were only a few photographs of him from 30 years ago and the last robot portrait includes new details entrusted to the Police by some of the detainees around him, which are incredibly similar to those that have been seen in a published photograph. today by the authorities, in which he is seen in a car with the carabinieri who have arrested him.

In this image he appears older, with dyed black hair, slightly heavier, but above all without the dark glasses with which he was known due to vision problems.

Although his figure has always been surrounded by legends, the researchers pointed out that the elusive “hood” de Costa Nostra was a very different personality from the rest of the mafia bosses such as Riina and Provenzano, of low intelligence and hidden for years in the middle of the countryside in appalling conditions.

There was talk about Messina Denaro of his great intelligence and that he loved luxury, travel, cars and clothes, and now, after his arrest, many of these legends that were built over years can be clarified.

(With information from EFE)