Rome CNN —
The arrest of Cosa Nostra crime boss Matteo Messina Denaro on Monday at a private health clinic in Palermo has stunned many around the world because he has been on the run for an exceptionally long time – but comes as no surprise to some who have been watching the Mafia more accurate.
Rumors of his ill health had been circulating in Sicily for months, with hints of a “deal” to bring him back to the surface for better cancer treatment. When officials asked him his name, he chose not to use his alias, Andrea Bonafede, Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, told reporters.
“I’m Matteo Messina Denaro,” he said instead — probably the first time he’s uttered those words publicly in the 30 years he’s been on the run.
Messina Denaro, who is being held in a maximum-security prison in L’Aquila in central Italy, failed to appear via video link for a hearing on Thursday – over the 1992 killing of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino – and left his lawyer in his participate names.
Messina Denaro, nicknamed “Diabolik,” went into hiding in 1993, just a year after Falcone and Borsellino were killed in double bombings. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2002 for his part in her death in absentia, but following his arrest the case is now being tried in higher courts.
That year he was also convicted of the murders of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a defector, and the murder of Antonella Bonanno, the pregnant partner of a rival boss. Both cases are also being tried in higher courts now that he has been arrested.
After his arrest, police found at least two hiding places in the Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazara, where he is believed to have been living for the past few months. CNN affiliate SkyTG24 reported that a house where he was hiding was in the heart of the city and police found luxury clothing and expensive perfumes there. The other was a fortified bunker behind a hidden door, according to Portal, citing local officials.
Further details have not yet been released by the police. However, they confirmed that Italy’s most wanted man regularly did his own grocery shopping and neighbors described him as a “friendly” person.
On Thursday, Giovanni Luppino, an olive oil producer who allegedly drove him to the Palermo clinic where he was arrested, said in court he had “no idea” that the man who had become his friend was really the fugitive mob boss be. Messina Denaro remains in prison awaiting trial for alleged mob collusion. The police also dropped investigations into the doctors who treated him.
Falcone and Borsellino’s killings were ordered by then-boss Salvatore “Toto” Riina, who was arrested in 1993 and who had brought Messina Denaro into the Cosa Nostra Mafia organization years earlier. Riina was caught overhearing him expressing his admiration for the then-young criminal, specifically that he had no problem killing innocent bystanders instead of just focusing on vendettas.
Riina died of an unspecified health problem in the prison wing of a hospital in Parma in 2017, ending his reign for good. He was in a medically induced coma at the time. Mario Francese, a crime journalist who first exposed Riina in his writing for the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper, was assassinated in 1979. In 2001, the Cosa Nostra was found guilty of his murder, with both Riina and his successor, Bernardo Provenzano, sentenced to life in prison for their roles.
During his time in hiding, Messina Denaro worked closely under Provenzano, who assumed Riina’s role as top boss to the outside world until his own capture in 2006 in a hideout near Corleone. Provenzano died of bladder cancer in the prison wing of a Milan hospital in 2016, making Messina Denaro top boss.
Felia Allum, professor of comparative organized crime and corruption at Britain’s University of Bath, said Messina Denaro – who was born in 1962 – was the last of an old generation of mafia bosses.
“He represents the last link between the bellicose and open Cosa Nostra of the early 1990s and the quiet, enterprising mafia of the 21st century,” she said. She also emphasizes that the arrest of Messina Denaro is not the end of the mafia. “I don’t see any sense of closure if we don’t know who was protecting him if he doesn’t cooperate,” she said.
Rumors of a deal or “pact” between the state and Cosa Nostra to bring Messina Denaro out of hiding are worth considering, according to Roberto Saviano, author of the best-selling book “Gomorrah,” about the Neapolitan Camorra crime group.
“It’s always said that the mafia is the anti-state, that’s a mistake. The mafia is allied with part of the state while another part is fighting it,” he said on his YouTube channel. “It was in this power play that Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested.”
Saviano added in a text message exchange with CNN that there was another reason Messina Denaro had found for 30 years. “They only started looking for him after 20 years,” he said.
John Dickie, Professor of Italian Studies at British University College London and author of “Cosa Nostra”, sees it differently and tells CNN that instead there is much to suggest that no pact was made, but that Messina Denaro no longer has the power that he has once, which makes him a less valuable person to protect.
Over the past decade, billions of euros worth of assets have been seized from his closest allies and family members, weakening his power and his ability to be protected, he said.
“His network has been cut down over the years and the Mafia has been weakened by arrests,” Dickie said. “The mafia was different 30 years ago, it was much stronger.”
By arresting most of Messina Denaro’s family and keeping tabs on the rest, they were likely to have tracked him down, he said. “Its meaning is symbolic,” Dickie told CNN. “When he was in hiding, he was a living poster child for the power of Cosa Nostra, but now he didn’t have that power.”
Whether it was the result of a pact or truly the result of three decades of investigation, the arrest was welcomed by those most injured by the mafia’s deadly hand.
Maria Falcone, sister of the murdered prosecutor, welcomed Messina Denaro’s arrest. “Oh, I wish Giovanni and Paolo could see the applause and raised hands from the people of Palermo after the arrest,” she told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera. “It’s a big step towards full democracy.”
Giancarlo Caselli, a former anti-mafia prosecutor in Palermo and colleague of the assassinated prosecutors, said in an interview with Radio Popolare that the main reason Messina Denaro evaded capture for so long was the complicity of those who protected him.
“Mafiosi don’t operate in a vacuum. They are inside, intertwined with a system of relationships, complicity, without which they could not carry out their criminal activities, without which they could not remain on the run,” he said.
“They are in relationships involving professionals, entrepreneurs, public administrators, politicians and individuals who flank their organization and form what is called the mafia bourgeoisie, or gray area.” He said it was this gray area, “the backbone of the power of the Mafia”, without which the Mafia would not survive for so long.
The Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafia is the only one of Italy’s criminal organizations to be governed by a pyramid structure, meaning that if the top boss dies or is imprisoned, a new top boss comes to power – although Riina and Provenzano are behind bars have had some influence.
The Neapolitan Camorra, whose factions along with the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria founded the Cosa Nostra in the 19th century, rule a horizontal hierarchy with groups tied to families or territories, meaning that when a top boss is captured or is killed, the broader organization is not weakened.
The mafiosi of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra who emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century established the US Mafia primarily in New York and New Orleans at various points in history, including the early 20th century, mid-1960s and early of the 1970s when the American groups were at their strongest. Today, while all of Italy’s major criminal groups have expanded internationally, the Cosa Nostra remains the original exporter of the so-called “Malavita” underworld.
Messina Denaro now faces a series of criminal cases. Despite being tried in absentia on a number of charges, Italian criminal cases go through all three levels and end with the Supreme Court signing them off. Criminals can only be tried in absentia in the first degree, which means that his cases are now passed through appellate courts and trials.
He is represented by his niece Lorenza Guttadauro, daughter of his sister Rosalia, who passed the Italian equivalent of the bar exam in 2011. The next hearing in the case of anti-mafia prosecutors is scheduled for March 9.
And who is the new boss of bosses? Police have not named a suspected successor.
But in Saviano’s opinion, Messina Denaro will reign until his death, like Riina and Provenzano before him.
“Unless he decides to repent, Matteo Messina Denaro, even if he is imprisoned, will continue to be the king of Cosa Nostra because no one is willing to sit on the throne he left half empty,” he said .