“They are not for following fashion, they are my experience and they help me not to forget,” the Cosa Nostra boss had said to his sister, explaining to her the meaning of the three tattoos he had gotten done while on the run in Palermo.
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Almost seven months after the death of Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro, investigations into his death continue thirty years in hiding and on the network of accomplices that he had managed to build over the years. The mafia leader, in fact, was repeatedly able to circulate around Palermo practically undisturbed, also frequenting commercial premises: in the investigators’ sights, in particular, two episodes such as a lunch in a restaurant for tourists in the city center and a session with a tattoo artist.
Investigative news that the Palermo Prosecutor’s Office will use in the appeal process of the sentence issued against Andrea Bonafede, sentenced to 6 years and 8 months in prison for aggravated aiding and abetting. In the appeal against the verdict – the prosecutors had accused the man of the mafia association which was then reclassified by the investigating judge as aiding and abetting – the magistrates included a series of previously unpublished episodes. Like the two pseudonyms used by the boss who told the tattoo artist his name was Vito Firreri and gave the name of Averna to the worker who had to repair his dishwasher in his house in Campobello di Mazara.
There are three tattoos in particular done by the boss in Palermo: “Among the wild tigers”, “Ad augusta per angusta” and “VIII X MCML, XXXI”. The meaning, as revealed by the investigations, he himself had explained to his sister Rosalia.
Messina Denaro, asked for 20 years for his sister Rosalia: “She managed the pizzini while the boss was in hiding”
To indicate the woman’s tattoos, as will emerge from a note later found by the police, Messina Denaro used a C. “‘C’ Tattoo'” she wrote to remember it. The boss will then dwell on the meaning of the writings during a conversation in prison with Rosalia, who will later be arrested, and the other two sisters Bice and Giovanna. In the dialogue, intercepted by the investigators, Messina Denaro clarified that “ad augusta per angusta”, made in 2012, meant “to glory through suffering”. “I did it for my daughter when she passed away,” she explained.
“This (August 8, 1981) is an important date for me,” he adds, referring to the Roman numerals. “This – she explains, referring to the writing ‘among the wild tigers’ – I did seven-eight years ago”. With the Palermo tattoo artist Messina Denaro he had used the false name of Vito Ferreri. And the boss also talks about the tattoos in one of the diaries seized after the arrest: “They are not for following fashion, they are my experience and they help me not to forget”, he notes.
