Italy discovers jewels, perfumes and condoms in Cosa Nostra mobster’s bunker

A bunker in the apartment, famous brand perfumes, luxury watches, erectile dysfunction pills and condoms. Life is hard for a mobster who is arrested and has his objects scrutinized by the police — precisely what is happening now to Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, number 1 of Cosa Nostra, a century-old criminal organization immortalized in films like “The Godfather”.

The country’s most wanted mobster, he had been on the run for three decades and was arrested last Monday (16) in a hospital in Palermo, Sicily (also the homeland of the Corleones in the film).

This Thursday (19), Italian police found Messina Denaro’s third hiding place in the small town of Campobello di Mazara, with just 11,000 inhabitants. It is an apartment, which was empty and had been put up for sale.

The other property, where he probably lived, was where he found the pills against impotence, condoms, branded clothes and sneakers, as well as luxury watches and perfumes. Officially, the residence belonged to a childhood friend of the mobster, named Andrea Bonafede. It was under the name of this friend that he went into hiding to undergo treatment for colon cancer in the city of Palermo.

The third hiding place was a bunker inside another property. To get in there, you had to open the false bottom of a closet. Precious stones and other jewels were found there.

Also this Thursday, Denaro missed the trial hearing in which he is accused of having participated in the attacks that killed anti-mafia prosecutors Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, in 1992. videoconference, but declined to be present.

A new hearing has been set for March 9, when Denaro’s niece, Lorenza Guttadauro, will act as his lawyer. All in the family, as it should be in a traditional mafia story — in recent years, more than a hundred people linked to him have been arrested, including relatives like his sister Patrizia, arrested in 2013, charged with terrorizing and extorting neighbors and businessmen.

Reports from journalists sent to Campobello di Mazara indicate that the so-called “omertà”, the law of silence enacted by the mafiosi, is still valid. Neighbors say that the capo frequented pizzerias and bars, but despite all the bars and pizzerias in the city being visited by reporters, none of the owners admitted that he ate or drank there.

Speaking of journalists, one of them made the news this Thursday in Italy, shaving in front of TV cameras. Pino Maniaci, host of Sicilian regional broadcaster Telejato, had promised to cut the mustache he had been growing for 50 years, long, Niezstche style, if the police ever arrested Denaro. Well, she did, and Maniaci kept his promise.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, paid tribute to police officer Filippo Salvi, who died in 2017 during an investigation to reach Messina Denaro.

“When you try to belittle the work of so many men and women who every day, with courage and a spirit of selflessness, dedicate their lives to the fight against organized crime, the memory of silent heroes like Filippo is also tarnished”, he wrote on the networks.

In a challenging moment of his short term, amid rising fuel prices, Meloni had already capitalized on the arrest of the mobster, saying it was proof that the State does not give up the fight against the mafia. “Preventing and fighting crime will remain an absolute priority for this government,” he tweeted on Monday.