Volkswacht Bodensee - Italian police seize $232 mn in late mafia boss's assets

The "vast fortune" of the ruthless Cosa Nostra boss -- a legendary figure finally captured in 2023 in Palermo after three decades on the run -- had been amassed since the 1980s, Italy's financial police said in a statement.

Messina Denaro, head of Sicily's Castelvetrano clan who had six life sentences to his name, died in prison a few months after his arrest at age 61.

The investigation by the Guardia di Finanza uncovered "vast sums of money derived from drug trafficking reinvested in numerous European and non-European countries," police said.

Assets were being seized in Andorra, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Monaco, Spain and Switzerland, as well as Italy, police said.

Drug money was "reintroduced into the legal economy" through a wide range of assets, including luxury vacation resorts on Spain's Costa del Sol, bank accounts, securities portfolios and corporate holding companies, they said.

Three people have been arrested in the probe.

Italy's top anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, hailed the operation as of "great strategic importance."

"It is not simply a matter of identifying and seizing a significant portion of the illicit wealth accumulated over decades of related trafficking and parasitic exploitation of the territory –- Sicily in particular -– from an organisation as powerful as the Cosa Nostra," Melillo said during a press conference in Palermo Thursday.

But the operation also managed to "delay and hinder" Cosa Nostra's attempt to rebuild its structure after the death of the powerful Messina Denaro, he said.

Police used planes, drones and thermal scanners in the investigation, the latter used "to detect concealed spaces and hidden cavities," they said.

The eight foreign companies identified during the probe were primarily used for real estate investments and assets management.

Many of the 22 real estate properties found to be linked to Messina Denaro were "genuine luxury resorts located between Marbella, Benahavis and Puerto Banus, in some of the most exclusive areas of the Costa del Sol," police said.

- Living on the lam -

One of the most notorious bosses of Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in "The Godfather" movies, Messina Denaro had a long string of crimes to his name.

He was convicted of involvement in the 1992 high-profile murders of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and for deadly bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993.

One of his life sentences was for ordering the kidnapping and subsequent strangulation of the 12-year-old son of a witness in the Falcone case, whose body was then dissolved in acid.

After disappearing in 1993, Messina Denaro managed to elude authorities for the next 30 years as the Italian state cracked down on the Sicilian mob.

But he remained the top name on Italy's most-wanted list and increasingly became a figure of legend.

It was his decision to seek treatment for cancer under a false name that led to his capture. He was arrested on January 16, 2023, when he visited a clinic in Palermo.

He was found to have been staying near his hometown of Castelvetrano in western Sicily, his fugitive lifestyle facilitated by his sister and close confidantes.

With their help, Messina Denaro also was able to continue to communicate with, and direct, his Mafia operatives.

Messina Denaro continued to receive cancer treatment while incarcerated at L'Aquila, but he was later moved to hospital in August that year, under heavy security.

He died on September 25, 2023.

C.Bruderer--VB