Cosa Nostra: Leader Arrested, But Tolerance and Cover-Up Continue

Italy is still trying to grasp the full significance and implications of the arrest of the “godfather of godfathers”, the leader of Cosa Nostra Matteo Messina Denaro.

Carabinieri tracked him down and arrested him outside the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, early last Monday morning. And his arrest—the end of his fugitive trial—continues to be headline news across the country’s media.

Messina Denaro is considered the last undisputed “starter” of Cosa Nostra, successor to Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. He was taken to a maximum security prison, after a full thirty years on the run and countless hours of investigations and surveillance.

His “resume” shows that he learned to act as a ruthless criminal from a very early age: his father, Chicho Messina Denaro, was also a big mobster. At 18 he committed his first murder and is responsible for the deaths of at least three young children.

The head of Sicilian organized crime in the early 1990s supported and implemented the hard line of open conflict with the Italian state, with the murders of prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borcellinobut also bombings in central parts of Milan, Rome and Florence.

Its main goal is to achieve the “relaxation” of the strict detention and isolation measures that were foreseen – and continue to be foreseen – for the “godfathers” who are in the country’s penitentiary institutions.

Apart from all this, however, what the 60-year-old arch-mafioso focused on, was the change of the “hard core of activities” of Cosa Nostra.

Money laundering

It decided to stop giving almost exclusive weight to the drug trade and expanded into many other areas. From wind energy, to the purchase of large supermarket chains and tourist infrastructure. Activities that present a more limited risk than drugs and provide opportunities for easy money laundering.

Beyond, of course, all these elements, there is also a second level of reading this whole story. The question is clear and almost self-evident: how is it possible for Messina Denaro to have remained a fugitive for three decades without ever leaving Sicily?

He was arrested in the village of Campobello Di Mazara, which is only seven kilometers from Castelvetrano, where his mother was born and still lives. In the week we are leaving behind us, the carabinieri and the Italian economic police identified three different hideouts, always in the same area.

Tolerance and cover-up

Which shows that there undeniably continues to be a huge problem of tolerance, cover-up and complicity.

It is enough to cite a few examples. The mighty “godfather” underwent two surgeries in the past years and since 2020, he has been in close contact with doctors and nurses since he was diagnosed with colon cancer in November 2020.

He used the false name Andrea Bonafede, but it is impossible that a significant part of the people he associated with did not know that he was the most important wanted man in the country.

After all, Andrea Bonafede is a real person. He lives in Sicily and is the same age as the “godfather”. And, as it appears from the investigations so far, he voluntarily “lent” his personal information to this hardened criminal.

The Italian prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia he stated shortly after the arrest of Messina Denarto that everyone should be concerned and that despite all efforts, there continues to be a part of the bourgeoisie that offers cover and help to the mobsters. These are doctors, local government officials and more.

On the one hand, outside the La Maddalena clinic, as soon as the news of the arrest became known, several citizens spontaneously gathered and began to applaud the carabinieri.

On the other hand, however, on Thursday, in a mobilization that had been organized in Castelvetrano, next to Messina Denaro’s house, with the slogan “no to the mafia”, very few residents attended.

Journalists covering the initiative outnumbered the protesters. Two Sicilies, but also two Italys with diametrically opposite ways of thinking and daily action.

“The mob boss is sick, he might die soon enough. Did he finally decide to surrender precisely for this reason?”, is the question posed by many commentators.

It may be so, or necessarily, due to his health, he may have lowered the level of protection measures that over the years have guaranteed him impunity. We may never know for sure, but in any case this does not invalidate the enormous work of Italian prosecutors, police and carabinieri.

But the main problem, the great challenge from now on, is what can be done to limit the power of the mafia in society – in the villages, in the cities, in the commercial enterprises and in a significant part of the “bourgeoisie” of Kato Italy. Obviously starting from the creation of a healthy and by all means legal economic development; which can bring jobs without the need for each mafia landlord to mediate.

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