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Matteo Messina Denaro, during his thirty-year hiding, did not give up buying cars. Indeed, he personally went to dealerships to choose and purchase them, often using false identities.
The investigations by the Carabinieri del Ros, coordinated by the Anti-Mafia District Attorney’s Office of Palermo, have brought to light three of these purchases.
– November 2014: Messina Denaro, under the identity of Massimo Gentile, architect, buys a Fiat 500 from Nuova Co.ri. of Palermo.
– January 2022: In the role of Andrea Bonafede (born in ’63), the boss buys an Alfa Romeo Giulietta in a dealership in Corso Calatafimi.
– 2020: In Carini, Messina Denaro, still with the identity of Bonafede, buys another Fiat 500.
Other trips:
The analysis of the license plates of his cars made it possible to reconstruct further movements of the boss. In 2017, on board the 500 bought in Palermo, he was stopped at a checkpoint in Mazara del Vallo. He was equipped with false documents, registered to another person, whose identity is now under investigation. The episode, although disturbing, is regularly recorded in the law enforcement database.
Questions remain as to how Messina Denaro was able to enjoy such protection and complicity. The boss, in prison, provided the magistrates with a Jewish proverb to explain his fugitive status: “If you want to hide a tree, plant it in the forest”. But the investigators don’t believe it.
In fact, Messina Denaro had already been between Trapani and Palermo for ten years when he discovered he had a tumor in November 2020. He felt safe in his territory, so much so that he did not leave Campobello even during a maxi blitz by the ROS in September 2022.
The investigations continue to shed light on the dense network of supporters who helped the boss and to understand where his rock-solid confidence came from.
Messina Denaro’s cars are an important piece in reconstructing his hiding place and his relationships. The analysis of his movements and his fictitious identities could lead to new revelations and perhaps even reveal the secrets of one of the most elusive figures of Cosa Nostra.
