Italian police are swiftly cracking down on the prison community that allowed "final Godfather" Matteo Messina Denaro to reside and thrive in broad daylight in his native Sicily for the final 30 years -- regardless of being on Italy's most wished checklist.
On Monday, authorities arrested a suspect accused of "loaning" his establish to the Mafia boss, a 59-year-old Sicily-based surveyor named Andrea Bonafede.
Because of false paperwork, Messina Denaro was capable of do issues like purchase a automotive in individual, go to the grocery store and search therapy in a non-public medical facility, the place he even took a selfie with a surgeon.
Messina Denaro is presently being held in a high-security jail in L’Aquila, central Italy.
He has most cancers and is “significantly in poor health”, based on the physician who was treating him earlier than the arrest.
Police have already discovered and searched three hideouts in Sicily, two in Campobello di Mazara and one in Trapani, the place he’s understood to have lived a “regular life” up till his 16 January arrest in Palermo.
In his hideouts, police discovered jewelry, costly restaurant receipts, tablets to boost male sexual efficiency, as effectively Francis Ford Coppola’s "Godfather" memorabilia.
Messina Denaro is scheduled to look earlier than a courtroom on 9 March.
He’s interesting his life sentence over the homicide of two outstanding Italian Mafia prosecutors in 1992, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in addition to their bodyguards.
He has, nonetheless, additionally been accused of ordering or finishing up plenty of homicides -- a minimum of 20, based on the Italian press.
There are nonetheless four different high-profile gangsters wished by Italian police presently at massive. Folks linked not solely to the Sicilian Mafia, but in addition to the Sardinian, Calabrian and Neapolitan “clans”.