Matteo Messina Denaro, Once Italy’s Most Famous Fugitive, Dies at 61

Matteo Messina Denaro, a convicted killer and high-ranking mobster with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra who had eluded seize for 3 many years, has died in a hospital within the central Italian metropolis of L’Aquila, the place he had been serving time in a maximum-security jail. He was 61.

Mr. Messina Denaro had been handled for most cancers for years, and fell right into a coma that docs mentioned on Friday was irreversible. The Italian information company ANSA reported early Monday that he had died.

Mr. Messina Denaro was arrested in January whereas ready to bear chemotherapy at a non-public clinic in Palermo. He had been utilizing a pretend identification, and investigators found that he was being handled for most cancers after they discovered a scrap of paper together with his medical historical past rolled up within the leg of a chair in his mom’s house in Castelvetrano, Sicily.

Since he was not handled underneath his actual title, they used nationwide well being service data to determine sufferers with comparable circumstances and slender it down.

Regardless of working within the shadows, Mr. Messina Denaro had remained on the high of Italy’s checklist of most wished fugitives for many years. His potential to confound investigators on a dogged, if irritating, mission to seek out him added to his aura of invincibility.

“La Cattura” (“The Seize”), a lately printed e book about searching him down written by Maurizio de Lucia, the chief prosecutor in Palermo, calls Mr. Messina Denaro “one in every of Italy’s biggest mysteries.” He was, Mr. de Lucia wrote, “the mobster who ferried Sicily’s Cosa Nostra into a brand new period, inside a legal system that unites many segments.”

In 2020, Mr. Messina Denaro was convicted in absentia for his position within the high-profile murders of two of Italy’s high anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in 1992, and for lethal bombings the following yr in Milan, Rome and Florence that prosecutors imagine had been a part of a Cosa Nostra technique towards the state.

He additionally acquired a life sentence for his involvement within the kidnapping and dying of the 12-year-old son of a Mafia turncoat after the boy was strangled and his physique was dissolved in acid, and within the dying of a police officer.

Lirio Abbate, an investigative journalist, has additionally written a e book about Mr. Messina Denaro. In that e book, “U Siccu,” printed 2020, Mr. Abbate mentioned that Mr. Messina Denaro had confided in a good friend that he might make “a cemetery” out of all of the individuals he had killed or ordered killed.

What little is understood about Mr. Messina Denaro comes by means of the testimony of Mafia turncoats and arrested mobsters, in addition to courtroom data, police experiences and rumour. Earlier than his arrest, investigators had little to go on: a 1988 recording of his testimony a couple of homicide and a handful of images of him as a younger man.

Nicknamed U Siccu (Sicilian for slender), Mr. Messina Denaro was mentioned to have had a penchant for quick luxurious vehicles that he couldn’t bask in for concern of being caught. In response to one investigator, he was carrying a watch valued at over 30,000 euros (about $32,000) when he was arrested. The police additionally discovered designer garments and costly perfumes in his final hide-out, an condominium in southwestern Sicily the place Mr. Messina Denaro had been dwelling for a number of years underneath an assumed title.

He informed the investigators who caught him that in recent times he had lived largely within the open, “a tree within the midst of a forest,” considering that he can be much less prone to be caught. If anybody knew that he was a Italy’s most wished mob boss, that they had not mentioned a phrase to the authorities.

He was mentioned to be a “fimminaru,” or playboy, and books and articles about him recounted his conquests in Italy and overseas. Some girls paid a excessive value, touchdown in jail for abetting his life as a fugitive. Mr. Abbate famous in his e book that Mr. Messina Denaro’s philandering had damaged with the “household values of the standard Mafia.”

He’s thought to have traveled extensively throughout his years on the run, establishing connections with legal teams in Europe and the Americas. “He was in every single place and nowhere,” Attilio Bolzoni, a seasoned Mafia reporter, wrote after the arrest. “A ghost.”

Mr. Messina Denaro had taken his place on the Cosa Nostra desk when his father, who additionally had Mafia affiliations, grew to become a fugitive after his personal authorized troubles. In 1991, the son attended an notorious assembly at which prosecutors imagine the Sicilian Mafia households determined to wage warfare towards the central authorities by pulling off the high-profile assassinations and bombings of the early Nineteen Nineties.

His rise throughout the echelons of organized crime was facilitated by his affiliation with the Corleonesi crime household, which was headed by Salvatore (Toto) Riina, the so-called Boss of all Bosses, who is alleged to have thought of him like a son.

When a Mafia turncoat related Mr. Messina Denaro to a number of murders in 1993, he went underground. However he maintained a agency maintain over his turf, the western Sicilian province of Trapani, the place he acquired belongings in authorized companies together with journey companies, supermarkets and alternative-energy corporations.

He communicated with associates by means of letters and handwritten messages that he prevented writing personally and demanded be burned as soon as learn. He was protected, consultants mentioned, by a big community of associates who feared and revered him, in addition to locals who seemed the opposite means.

Lots of of people that helped him elude seize or benefited from his monetary dealings had been jailed through the years, together with pals, members of the family and high enterprise associates. Practically 10 billion euros of his in belongings and shares in varied corporations and companies that had been seized through the years had been simply “the tip of the iceberg,” in accordance with Mr. de Lucia.

Piero Grasso, a onetime nationwide anti-Mafia prosecutor, mentioned that Mr. Messina Denaro was “a lot beloved, as a result of he was thought of a benefactor in his territories” — a dynamic that helps clarify why he was capable of keep underneath cowl for thus lengthy.

By the point he was arrested, he had accrued a number of life sentences. His ultimate months had been spent in jail, in courtroom and receiving therapy for most cancers. He had been scheduled to attend a listening to for one trial this month.

Mr. Messina Denaro was born on April 26, 1962, in Castelvetrano, a rural city in western Sicily, the fourth of six youngsters. His father, Francesco Messina Denaro, referred to as “don Ciccio,” was an area crime household boss who died in 1998 whereas a fugitive. His mom, Lorenza Santangelo, was a homemaker.

He grew up on an property belonging to a rich native household and attended a technical faculty within the space however didn’t end highschool, in accordance with Mr. de Lucia’s e book.

Data on survivors was not instantly obtainable.

Mr. de Lucia wrote that through the interrogations after his arrest, Mr. Messina Denaro had continued to disclaim being a part of the Mafia or collaborating in its killings.

But his violent streak started early.

“He was already taking pictures at 14,” Mr. Abbate wrote. “Killing at 18. At 31, he was putting bombs within the north. That is what we learn about him, a boy with simple legal abilities.”

Mr. Messina Denaro maintained his innocence till the tip, nevertheless; in a single interrogation in February, he described himself as a “stateless farmer.” “I used to work within the countryside,” he mentioned, complaining that he had misplaced his residence and his property. “I had belongings, however you took all of them away.”