A true economic empire of some US$ 5,000 million represents the assets seized from the front men of Matteo Messina Denarothe last godfather of Cosa Nostraarrested on Monday after 30 years on the run.
According to sources from the investigators, who for years have been analyzing the economic movements of characters close to the capo, the assets of the leader of the Sicilian mafia could be even greater.
The leader of the feared criminal organization has recycled part of his enormous fortune, from drug trafficking in the 1980s and 1990s, into legal activities including a network of wind farms, tourist resorts, buildings, supermarkets and works of art.
According to the economic newspaper Il Sole24Ore, the mafia boss has used loyal front men in all these years to launder dirty money.
The Italian Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate (DIA) considers that thanks to the complicity of businessmen, professionals and friends, it has forged a treasure that also extends to other countries, including several in Latin America.
Looking for the treasure
“Discovered the king, now his treasure is sought”announced the investigators of the specialized team of carabineros in charge of economic crimes.
“There is no doubt that his fortune is greater. The calculation so far has been made based on police operations, such as in the supermarket sector and wind farms”explained to Rai News24 Eleonora Montani, a professor of criminal law at Bocconi University and a member of the Milano anti-mafia committee.
“Organized crime enters the sectors that it can infiltrate (…) The mafia does not invest for the good of society but to obtain profits for it”he stressed.
The newspaper La Repubblica assures that Matteo Messina Denaro has used workers, electricians, butchers, to recycle dirty money, who were true financial wizards.
“In 2018, the DIA ordered the confiscation of the assets of Carmelo Patti, an electrician from Pavia (north), but of Sicilian origin, who in a few years became one of the five richest men in Italy” with Valtur, a chain of hotels and resorts for vacations, underlines the newspaper.
In the latest report from the DIA, which can be consulted online, the feared organization not only invests in Sicily, but also launders money in numerous countries as well as in tax havens.
For Giuseppe Pipitone, a Sicilian journalist and mafia expert, Matteo Messina Denaro’s relations with Latin America date back to the mid-20th century.
Close relations thanks to the father, Don Ciccio Messina Denaro, also godfather of the local mafia, close friend of the Cuntrera-Caruana mafia family, known as “the Cosa Nostra bankers”, who enjoyed a key position in drug trafficking and money laundering between the years eighty and ninety
“The Cuntrera and Caruana families emigrated to Canada, then to Great Britain and finally to Venezuela, where they quickly became among the biggest drug traffickers in the world” thanks to his connections with the cocaine bosses in Colombia.
In the special issue dedicated to the mafia of the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano published last year, coordinated by Pipitone, they cite a repentant mafioso who recounted that 20 years ago Matteo Messina Denaro invested US$5 million through his friends in Venezuela for a chicken farm.
“Chickens or cocaine?”they wondered.
(With information from AFP)
Source: Gestion
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