1 year ago
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At 8.20am past Monday, Andrea Bonafede was queueing astatine the check-in of a backstage aesculapian session successful Palermo, Sicily. Suffering from colon crab and thought to beryllium 59, helium had already undergone 2 operations and chemotherapy astatine the clinic, often bringing the unit presents of olive lipid and exchanging telephone numbers, and substance messages, with his chap patients. He was known to formal successful flashy clothes: that greeting helium was wearing a sheepskin coat, a achromatic hat, Ray-Ban shades and an costly Franck Muller watch.
Waiting for his Covid test, helium went extracurricular and walked towards the Fiat Brava, and the driver, that had brought him there. The undercover officers watching him disquieted that helium had realised helium was nether surveillance and that helium mightiness beryllium astir to bolt. A colonel from the Carabinieri, Italy’s militarised police, decided to determination in: “Are you Matteo Messina Denaro?”
“You cognize who I am,” came the weary reply.
The 150 constabulary and Carabinieri who had been successful presumption wrong and extracurricular the session abruptly sprang into action. Totò Schillaci, the erstwhile planetary footballer from Palermo, was caught up successful the blitz, aboriginal comparing it to “a madhouse, a chaotic west”. Armed forces successful balaclavas burst retired of unmarked vehicles and blocked exit routes and streets. After 30 years connected the run, Italy’s astir wanted antheral – nicknamed U Siccu, oregon “Skinny” – had yet been captured.
Realising what was happening, members of the nationalist began to applaud. Some high-fived the men successful balaclavas. In little than an hour, the apprehension of Messina Denaro was front-page quality crossed the globe. The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella (whose brother, Piersanti, was murdered by the mafia successful 1980 erstwhile helium was politician of Sicily) thanked the constabulary and prosecutors. The premier minister, Giorgia Meloni, instantly flew to Palermo to congratulate the peculiar forces connected capturing the antheral who had helped program a terrorist-style bombing run crossed Italy successful 1992 and 1993.
In those years, arsenic the certainties of the First Republic disintegrated, the standoff betwixt the Italian authorities and Cosa Nostra had turned into convulsive confrontation. Two dogged investigators, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, had persuaded a erstwhile mobster, Tommaso Buscetta, to crook state’s witness. The mafia’s secretive organisation and governmental connections were, for the archetypal time, intelligibly revealed. In wide trials, 338 mafiosi were convicted.
When those sentences were upheld connected appeal, the mafia took its brutal revenge: their governmental protector, Salvo Lima, was executed successful March 1992 and aboriginal that twelvemonth some investigators were killed successful precise nationalist bombings connected the island. Falcone, his woman and 3 bodyguards were murdered connected the roadworthy betwixt the airdrome and Palermo successful May; Borsellino was murdered successful Palermo successful July, on with 5 bodyguards, arsenic helium visited his sister and mother. Messina Denaro was progressive successful the operational readying of some bombings.
The pursuing twelvemonth the panic run turned to the mainland. At 1.04am connected 27 May 1993, a weaponry exploded extracurricular the Uffizi gallery, successful Via dei Georgofili successful Florence, destroying assorted works of creation and sidesplitting 5 people, including a nine-year-old girl, Nadia, and her two-month-old sister. Two months later, connected 27 July, a weaponry extracurricular a modern creation assemblage successful Milan killed five; the adjacent day, determination were 2 further bombs successful Rome, this clip without victims. Messina Denaro was convicted, successful absentia, of having besides ordered and planned the mainland bombing campaign.
Born successful 1962 successful the state of Trapani, Matteo Messina Denaro is the lad of a convicted mobster who had worked for the affluent D’Alì family. He became the protege of Totò Riina, the brag of bosses, and was renowned for being some a party-loving womaniser and a ruthless killer. He fell successful emotion with an Austrian pistillate moving successful a edifice successful Selinunte and erstwhile her manager, Nicola Consales, was overheard complaining astir the “little mafiosi” who were lounging astir the hotel, helium was – successful Palermo successful 1991 – changeable dead.
A twelvemonth later, different mobster complained astir Riina’s strategy of a frontal battle connected the Italian state. Messina Denaro invited Vincenzo Milazzo to a meeting, changeable him, and strangled his large partner, Antonella Bonomo. Later that year, helium was portion of the radical that attempted to execution a policeman, Calogero Germanà. When 1 mafioso turned state’s witness, Messina Denaro was portion of the cupola – the radical of apical mafia bosses – that ordered the kidnap of his 12-year-old son, Giuseppe di Matteo. The lad was held captive for 779 days earlier being strangled and dissolved successful acid. Messina Denaro erstwhile boasted that helium had killed capable radical to capable a cemetery.
But during his 3 decades successful hiding, Messina Denaro besides took the mafia successful a caller direction. Drive-by executions and semtex bombings guaranteed lone crackdowns and atrocious headlines, and U Siccu had seen however the Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, had enriched itself by softly infiltrating and investing successful morganatic businesses. Messina Denaro enactment his soiled wealth into cleanable energy, utilizing an chartless electrician arsenic a beforehand to physique a wind-power empire worthy €1.5bn. He created a €700m concatenation of 83 shops done different frontman.
Investigators became suspicious astir assorted builders and salami-makers who were abruptly making millions done slot machines, stolen archaeological treasures, transport hubs, gathering companies and tourer resorts and truthful they began arresting those they suspected of being fronts for the Sicilian “Scarlet Pimpernel”. In 2011 alone, they arrested 140 suspected sidekicks and frontmen, a fewer of whom flipped and gave investigators insights into Messina Denaro’s concern empire.
But the antheral himself remained elusive. Investigators didn’t adjacent cognize what helium looked like. There was lone a photograph from 1993 which had been artificially aged. The cognition to find him was called Tramonto (“sunset”), named aft a poem written by the nine-year-old Nadia who had been killed successful Florence. The breakthrough came erstwhile wiretaps of his relatives revealed Messina Denaro had colon cancer. Investigators obtained lists of each patients aged implicit 55 undergoing oncological attraction for the illness successful the provinces of Agrigento, Palermo and Trapani.
Of the imaginable matches, 1 stood out: Andrea Bonafede was the sanction of a antheral connected the fringes of the mafia and it emerged that erstwhile helium was expected to beryllium connected the operating array successful Palermo, his telephone really revealed his beingness successful Campobello di Mazara, adjacent Trapani. The evident decision was that Bonafede had lent his individuality to idiosyncratic who couldn’t uncover their own. On 29 December, “Bonafede” booked an assignment successful the Palermo session for 16 January and when, past Monday morning, the existent Bonafede remained astatine home, the authorities decided to act.
But contempt the archetypal euphoria astatine the seizure of the celebrated fugitive, details of his beingness connected the tally person shocked the state successful the past week. Looking amazingly akin to the artificially aged photograph, Messina Denaro was surviving openly successful Campobello di Mazara, adjacent to his birthplace successful Castelvetrano. He utilized to spell regularly to the section bar, pizzeria and even, according to reports, to Palermo’s shot stadium. The Viagra recovered successful his level suggests helium had company. One doc who was treating him took selfies arsenic if helium knew helium was successful the beingness of a star. In a municipality of conscionable implicit 11,000 people, Messina Denaro was referred for attraction by a GP (known to beryllium a subordinate of a section masonic lodge) who presumably knew the existent Bonafede.
“He was hiding successful plain sight,” says Federico Varese, a prof of criminology astatine the University of Oxford, and writer of Mafia Life. “It is bonzer and disconcerting that it took 30 years to apprehension this antheral and that speaks to 1 fact: determination was nary assistance from section informants due to the fact that of a heavy mistrust of radical successful this portion of Italy towards institutions of the state.” Another erstwhile fugitive, mafia brag Bernardo Provenzano, was capable to elude seizure for 43 years.
But much than conscionable the passive omertà, oregon silence, of the section community, galore investigators spoke past week astir progressive collusion. Pasquale Angelosanto, the commandant of the elite troops down the Tramonto operation, lamented however the agelong hunt had been “marked by politicians, instrumentality enforcement officers and authorities officials being arrested oregon investigated for informing the brag that the ellipse was closing in”. Repeatedly authorities thought an apprehension was imminent, lone to beryllium foiled astatine the past minute: connected 1 occasion, constabulary burst into the suspected gathering spot successful Bagheria wherever Messina Denaro was thought to beryllium gathering 1 of his lovers, Maria Masi. They recovered lone caller caviar, a scarf, a bracelet, Merit cigarettes and a jigsaw, each hastily abandoned.
The suspicion of an overlap betwixt organization figures and organised transgression has deepened successful caller months: successful December past year, Antonio D’Alì – a erstwhile under-secretary astatine the interior ministry during Silvio Berlusconi’s 2001-06 authorities – was convicted for “external complicity with the mafia”. Both Messina Denaro and his begetter had worked for the D’Alì family. In September 2022, Totò Cuffaro, a erstwhile politician of the land who spent astir 5 years successful situation for “aiding and abetting” Cosa Nostra and breaching investigative secrecy, stood for re-election. His enactment oregon “list” won 5 seats successful the determination assembly. In an on-going trial, galore different politicians basal accused of negotiating with the mafia successful those situation years of 1992-93.
The faint anticipation that the captured antheral mightiness collaborate with the authorities and uncover immoderate of the secrets of that acheronian play has besides receded. The determination to name his niece, a notorious defender of mafiosi, arsenic his lawyer suggests helium volition not marque immoderate revelations oregon confessions. Nor is determination overmuch anticipation that the organisation volition beryllium importantly weakened. “Mafias are not reducible to their ‘bosses’,” wrote Luigi Ciotti, a lifelong anti-mafia campaigner, past week: “[they have] developed into a lattice of organisations susceptible of making up for the disappearance of 1 idiosyncratic done the spot of the system.”
“The longevity of this transgression organisation is extraordinary,” says Varese. “It has been astir since the 1830s, acold longer than astir businesses. We request to inquire what is being done to get escaped america not conscionable of the head, but of the basal causes of the mafia.”
Tobias Jones lives successful Parma. His astir caller publication is The Po: An Elegy for Italy’s Longest River
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