Italy: €200 million seized in Messina Denaro clan operation
An international operation has led to the seizure of an enormous asset base connected to the Cosa Nostra of deceased boss Matteo Messina Denaro. Three arrests and eight companies identified.
Italy: €200 million seized in Messina Denaro clan operation
An unprecedented blow has struck the criminal legacy left by one of Italy's most famous fugitives. Law enforcement authorities have confiscated assets worth more than 200 million euros, linked to the powerful Mafia organisation that operated under the leadership of Matteo Messina Denaro.
During an extensive operation conducted on an international scale, the Guardia di Finanza arrested three people. The investigation focuses on money laundering from proceeds of drug trafficking, an activity directly connected to the organisation of the boss. According to authorities, this operation represents the peak of complex and prolonged investigations, during which it was possible to trace a treasure of exceptional proportions.
The sums had been accumulated by reinvesting profits from the distribution of narcotics, an activity that began in the 1980s and continued in numerous countries, both European and non-European. Investigators identified eight enterprises forming part of the criminal network, along with substantial quantities of precious metals and luxury residences located in the most exclusive areas of the Spanish Costa del Sol.
For more than thirty years Messina Denaro was considered the head of Cosa Nostra and was numbered among the most dangerous wanted persons in the peninsula. His capture occurred in January 2023 in a healthcare facility in Sicily, where he had presented himself to receive treatment for a tumour. Eight months later he died in a cell, at age 61, before the trial could ever begin.
According to investigators, as an affiliate of Cosa Nostra he orchestrated or planned dozens of murders. He is numbered among those responsible for the bomb attacks that in 1992 caused the deaths of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, as well as members of their security details. For those crimes and for further terrorist acts he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia. In the Mafia hierarchy he was viewed as the heir to former bosses Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano.
Source: Der Spiegel