ITALY. Sicily: Possibly utilised by Matteo Messina Denaro, the “final godfather” of the Sicilian mafia, who was apprehended on Monday after 30 years on the run, Italian military police have discovered a likely underground bunker.
The bunker entrance was hidden in a closet in Campobello di Mazara, Sicily, where Denaro, 60, was found on Tuesday. The entrance to the bunker was hidden in a closet full of clothing.
However, they were also looking for documents thought to be in Denaro’s possession, specifically a “secret archive” of the Sicilian mafia’s “boss of bosses,” Tot Riina, who passed away in 2017. Some mafia informants claim that Denaro stole this archive, which is said to contain the details of the last 40 years of mafia killings. Investigators claimed to have found emeralds, diamonds, and other gemstones.
Denaro is accused of some of the Sicilian mafia’s most heinous crimes, including the 1992 bombings that killed Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and the 1996 strangulation and acid dissolution of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a mobster who became a state witness.
In 2002, Denaro was found guilty and given a life term in jail in absentia for either ordering or committing dozens of murders himself.
Denaro, often known as Diabolik or U Siccu (the skinny one), was born in 1962 in Castelvetrano, Sicily. Denaro prospered in the family business, creating an illegal multibillion-euro empire in the waste disposal, wind energy, and retail industries. His father was an influential Cosa Nostra figure.
Mafia bosses in Italy are infamous for creating escape tunnels under their homes, complex bunkers in the mountains that can only be accessed on foot, and hiding places in the woods when they are on the run to protect themselves.
Campobello di Mazara’s building’s size and purpose are not yet fully understood. At a Palermo medical facility receiving treatment for a tumor, Denaro was detained on Monday.
The alleged owner of the home in Via Maggiore Toselli was previously charged with mafia membership but found not guilty in 2001.
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