The key to an Alfa Romeo 164 found in Matteo Messina Denaro's purse : this was the input that allowed the carabinieri and magistrates to trace the last home of the boss , arrested yesterday after 30 years on the run , in Campobello di Mazara.
The investigators traced the vehicle using the key code and, thanks to an artificial intelligence system, reconstructed the movements of the Alfa, complete with images. Among the shots there was also that of the ex-fugitive who went in and out of the house with shopping bags.
The hideout was searched last night, a small 60 square meter apartment: a small living room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom in a two-story building in the heart of the town. The former Scarlet Pimpernel went shopping, attended restaurants, received women.
In the apartment, the carabinieri found designer sneakers, luxury clothes and perfumes, Rayban glasses, viagra pills, condoms, a refrigerator full of food, restaurant receipts . The house was registered in the name of Andrea Bonafede, the same surveyor who lent his identity to the boss, now under investigation.
For the moment it does not appear that there were documents of particular importance in the building, in fact the investigators suspect that there is a second home in which to look for the so-called treasure of Messina Denaro , which holds the secrets of Riina and the mafia massacres.
The boss "has been living here for at least six months" , explained the provincial commander of the Trapani carabinieri Fabio Bottino. «An apartment – he said – well renovated, which testifies that the economic conditions of the fugitive were good. Refined furnishings, of a certain standard, not luxurious but of an appreciable economic level. Searches and investigations are underway. We are detecting the presence of biological traces, of any hiding places or cavities where documentation may have been hidden. A job that will take days."
Rosario Cognata, the man who lives on the first floor of the building where the hideout was identified, spoke to reporters: « Every now and then I saw this person, I greeted him and nothing else. He answered cordially, he had been living here for about a year .'
In the meantime, Justice Minister Carlo Nordio signed the 41 bis for the mafia boss this morning . Messina Denaro has appointed his niece Lorenza Guttadauro, also the nephew of the Palermo mafia boss Giuseppe Guttadauro, as his lawyer. At the moment the boss is being held in the L'Aquila prison.
Vittorio Gebbia, head of medical oncology at the La Maddalena clinic where the boss was arrested yesterday, spoke about Messina Denaro's health conditions: " They are serious, the disease has accelerated in recent months, but I am sure it will continue to receive all the care he needs . Yesterday the carabinieri asked me whether postponing the cycle of chemotherapy that he was supposed to have here by three or four days would have had any consequences and I signed the authorization because such a small delay will have no effect on his state of health ». The former fugitive will undergo chemotherapy in prison, according to the doctors he has a maximum of three years to live .
Gebbia visited the boss, aka Andrea Bonafede, in January 2021 before a multidisciplinary surgical evaluation. Then the mobster started chemotherapy and on May 4, 2021 he was operated on for liver metastases by a surgical team. The poor prognosis was received "with great dignity" by the patient, who had "full awareness of his health conditions and no attitude that could arouse suspicion" .
(Unioneonline/L)