“Vast fortune” belonging to legendary Mafia boss seized by police in Italy

Italy said Thursday it was seizing more than 200 million euros ($232 million) in assets belonging to late Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro derived from drug trafficking and reinvested in Europe and beyond.

The “vast fortune” of the ruthless Cosa Nostra boss — a legendary figure finally captured in 2023 in Palermo after three decades on the run — had been amassed since the 1980s, Italy’s financial police said in a statement.

Messina Denaro, the head of Sicily’s Castelvetrano clan, who had six life sentences to his name, died in prison a few months after his arrest at age 61.

The investigation by the Guardia di Finanza uncovered “vast sums of money derived from drug trafficking reinvested in numerous European and non-European countries,” police said.  

Assets were being seized in Andorra, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Monaco, Spain and Switzerland, as well as Italy, police said.

Drug money was “reintroduced into the legal economy” through a wide range of assets, including luxury vacation resorts on Spain’s Costa del Sol, bank accounts, securities portfolios and corporate holding companies, they said.

Three people have been arrested in the probe.

Italy’s top anti-Mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, hailed the operation as of “great strategic importance.”

“It is not simply a matter of identifying and seizing a significant portion of the illicit wealth accumulated over decades of related trafficking and parasitic exploitation of the territory — Sicily in particular — from an organization as powerful as the Cosa Nostra,” Melillo said Thursday during a press conference in Palermo.

But the operation also managed to “delay and hinder” Cosa Nostra’s attempt to rebuild its structure after the death of the powerful Messina Denaro, he said.

Police used planes, drones and thermal scanners in the investigation. The scanners were used “to detect concealed spaces and hidden cavities,” they said.

The eight foreign companies identified during the probe were primarily used for real estate investments and assets management.

Many of the 22 real estate properties found to be linked to Messina Denaro were “genuine luxury resorts located between Marbella, Benahavis and Puerto Banus, in some of the most exclusive areas of the Costa del Sol,” police said.

30 years on the run

Messina Denaro was considered “Mafia nobility” — the last of three top Mafia bosses, the others being the notorious Salvatore “Toto” Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, both of whom also eluded capture for decades, continuing to live clandestine lives in Sicily. Riina, the so-called “boss of bosses,” was on the run for 23 years before his arrest in 1993. Provenzano spent 38 years as a fugitive and was finally captured in 2006.   

One of the most notorious bosses of Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in “The Godfather” movies, Messina Denaro had a long string of crimes to his name.

He was convicted of involvement in the 1992 high-profile murders of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and for deadly bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993.

One of his life sentences was for ordering the kidnapping and subsequent strangulation of the 12-year-old son of a witness in the Falcone case, whose body was then dissolved in acid.

After disappearing in 1993, Messina Denaro managed to elude authorities for the next 30 years as the Italian state cracked down on the Sicilian mob.

But he remained the top name on Italy’s most-wanted list and increasingly became a figure of legend.

It was his decision to seek treatment for cancer under a false name that led to his capture. He was arrested on Jan. 16, 2023, when he visited a clinic in Palermo.

Italian media reported Messina Denaro was being treated for colon cancer at the private hospital “La Maddalena” under the false name “Andrea Buonafede.” Reports said he did not resist arrest and he was taken to an undisclosed location by police.

According to eyewitnesses, when passers-by realized security forces had apprehended the notorious crime figure, people cheered and applauded the police.

He was found to have been staying near his hometown of Castelvetrano in western Sicily, his fugitive lifestyle facilitated by his sister and close confidantes.

With their help, Messina Denaro also was able to continue to communicate with, and direct, his Mafia operatives.  

Messina Denaro continued to receive cancer treatment while incarcerated at L’Aquila, but he was later moved to hospital in August that year, under heavy security.

He died on Sept. 25, 2023.

“You shouldn’t deny prayers to anyone, but I can’t say I am sorry,” Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini wrote on Instagram at the time.