Matteo Messina Denaro

Matteo Messina Denaro (Matteu Missina Dinaru; 26 April 1962 – 25 September 2023), also known as Diabolik (from the Italian comic book character), was a Sicilian Mafia boss from Castelvetrano.

Antonio D'Alì Sr. had to resign from the board of the Banca Sicula in 1983 because he appeared on the list of the secret freemason lodge Propaganda Due (P2) of Licio Gelli.

His cousin Giacomo D'Alì is a counsellor of the Banca Commerciale Italiana (Comit) in Milan, which acquired the Banca Sicula in 1991.

Messina Denaro became a fugitive on the most wanted list in 1993; according to Forbes in 2010, he was one of the ten most wanted and powerful criminals in the world.

After bomb attacks in Capaci and Via D'Amelio that killed prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the arrest of Salvatore Riina on 15 January 1993 and the introduction of strict prison regime (article 41-bis), Cosa Nostra embarked on a terrorist campaign in which Messina Denaro played a prominent role.

The remaining Mafia bosses, among them Messina Denaro, Giovanni Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Antonino Gioè, Giuseppe Graviano and Gioacchino La Barbera, met several times (often in the Santa Flavia area in Bagheria on an estate owned by the mafioso Leonardo Greco).

His son Antonio D'Alì Jr. became a senator for Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in 1996, and in April 2001 under-secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, the institution responsible for fighting organised crime.

Matteo's brother Salvatore Messina Denaro, arrested in November 1998, worked at the Banca Sicula and continued to work for Comit.

Messina Denaro is often portrayed as a ruthless playboy mafioso and womaniser, driving an expensive Porsche sports car and wearing a Rolex Daytona watch, Ray Ban sunglasses and fancy clothes from Giorgio Armani and Versace.

He was an ardent player of computer games, and is said to be the father of an extramarital child, which is unusual in the conservative culture of the Mafia.

Messina Denaro had a reputation for fast living and allegedly killed a Sicilian hotel owner who accused him of taking young girls to bed.

As such, he was remarkably different from traditional Mafia bosses like Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano who claimed to adhere to conservative family values.

After the natural death of his father in November 1998, Matteo became capo mandamento of the area including Castelvetrano and the neighbouring cities, while Vincenzo Virga ruled in the city of Trapani and its surroundings.

The son of a Mafia boss, Denaro became known nationally on 12 April 2001 when the magazine L'Espresso put him on the cover with the headline: Ecco il nuovo capo della Mafia ("Here is the new Mafia boss").

After the arrest of Virga in 2001, Messina Denaro took over the leadership of the Mafia in the province of Trapani.

He was said to command some 900 men and apparently reorganised the 20 Mafia families in Trapani into one single mandamento separated from the rest of Cosa Nostra.

The Trapani Mafia is considered the zoccolo duro (solid pedestal) of Cosa Nostra and the most powerful except for the families in Palermo.

Messina Denaro got his money through an extensive extortion racket forcing businesses to pay a pizzo (protection money) and through skimming off public construction contracts (the family owns substantial sand quarries).

He was also active in the international drug trade, allegedly with the Cuntrera-Caruana clan, which attracted the attention of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

He also made money through legitimate business; he had stakes in a Sicilian supermarket chain and owned vast Olive Groves.

He was involved in olive oil production in a corrupt business, which used cheap African labour.

According to the Direzione distrettuale antimafia (DDA) of Palermo, he had interests in Venezuela and contacts with Colombian drug trafficking cartels as well as the 'Ndrangheta.

His illicit networks extend to Belgium and Germany.

Messina Denaro had strong links with Mafia families in Palermo, in particular in Brancaccio, the territory of the Graviano Family.

Filippo Guttadauro the brother of the Giuseppe Guttadauro – the regent of the Brancaccio Mafia while Giuseppe Graviano and Filippo Graviano are in jail – is the brother-in-law of Messina Denaro.

They are involved in cocaine trafficking in agreement with 'Ndrangheta clans from Platì, Marina di Gioiosa Ionica and Siderno, as well as the Mafia family of Mariano Agate.

He was considered to be one of the new leaders of the Sicilian mob after the arrests of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006 and Salvatore Lo Piccolo in November 2007.

With the deaths of Bernardo Provenzano in 2016 and Salvatore Riina in 2017, Messina Denaro was seen as the unchallenged boss of all bosses within the Mafia.

After 30 years on the run, he was arrested on 16 January 2023 near a private clinic in Sicily's capital, Palermo, where he was reportedly undergoing chemotherapy under a false name.

Messina Denaro died in a prison hospital on 25 September 2023 after falling into an irreversible coma at the age of 61, after receiving treatment for colon cancer.

Matteo Messina Denaro was born in Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani, Sicily.

His father, Francesco Messina Denaro, known as Don Ciccio, was the capo mandamento of Castelvetrano.

Matteo learned to use a gun at 14.

He once bragged: "I filled a cemetery all by myself."

He made a reputation by murdering rival boss Vincenzo Milazzo from Alcamo and strangling Milazzo's three-month pregnant girlfriend.

His father started as a campiere (armed guard) of the D'Alì family, wealthy landowners who were among the founders of the Banca Sicula

it.

He became the fattore (overseer of an estate) of the D'Alì land holdings.

They handed over a significant estate in the area of Zangara (Castelvetrano) to Matteo Messina Denaro.

However, the real new owner turned out to be Salvatore Riina, leader of the Corleonesi Mafia clan, with whom Messina Denaro was allied.