Of Fabrizio Caccia, sent to Campobello di Mazara (Trapani)
The role of the peasant surveyor who had lent his identity to Messina Denaro. He told the prosecutors: “We’ve known each other since we were children”
CAMPOBELLO DI MAZARA (Trapani) – Friends have always called him in town “Happy” to tease him. Because he actually started losing his hair from an early age and today he is completely bald, the eyebrows are also hairless. And she also wears a pair of glasses with thick myopic lenses and a very classic black frame. In short, the surveyor Andrea Bonafede, the real one, who will turn 60 in October, looks nothing like Matteo Messina Denaro, the boss of Castelvetrano who one day – now running out of supporters, arrested by the dozen – decided to steal his identity. And with his documents «u Siccu»just by changing the photo, he has gone on in recent years, as a fugitive, shopping in Campobello di Mazara like an ordinary man and also undergoing chemo cycles in the Palermo clinic under a false name.
The surveyor
But the surveyor, in reality, Andrew Bonafede he never did. As a boy he took his diploma but then did something else. Everyone here remembers buying tickets to Acquasplash in the Tonnara district: a swimming pool, two slides and a few umbrellas, a water park with very few pretensions, which has never reopened since the 2020 lockdown. Then he started working in the office at the ‘Evergreen srl environmental services, waste management company of Campobello. But let’s be clear: the theft of the name did not take place against his will, Bonafede is not a victim and in fact he is now investigated for aggravated aiding and abetting and mafia association. She had said “I avail myself” to the investigators on Monday. But to avoid handcuffs, yesterday she changed her tune by starting to admit something: «I have known Messina Denaro since I was a boy and I bought in my name, with 20,000 euros which he gave me, however, the house of San Vito alley», where the boss has been living for the past year. And yes: to go and hide, the godfather has chosen a street named after the patron saint of Campobello. A case?
Don Ciccio and uncle Nardo
However, it is true that the two know each other as children, they are almost the same age, but above all the father of Matteo Messina Denaro – Francis, “Don Ciccio” – he was very close to Andrea’s uncle, Leonardo Bonafede, said Nardo, the mafia boss of Campobello, who died two years ago. And even though the nephew took a different path, then the moment came when he couldn’t say no. So lately he had almost become invisible too: home and office, without being seen around too much, not seeing the two sisters Mariella and Angelina too much, apart from a few evening walks with a cigar and a dog. «A very calm man, never a discussion, never even a fine», he tells it like this Giuliano Panierinothe commander of the Campobello brigade.
«Regular document»
Commander Panierino yesterday wanted to make ainvestigation lampor on the identity card found on Messina Denaro, made out to Andrea Bonafede but with the photo of the boss. «I’ve known the demographic service officer who issued the document for a lifetime, his name is Vincenzo Pisciotta and he’s a decent person, he’s retired now, I can’t believe he lent himself to such a forgery. I put my hand on the fire.” A quick search found the original of the original in the municipal archive request presented in 2016 by Andrea Bonafede in person with two registered photographs of him. And this, according to the police, suggests that the document had been issued regularly and only after that the photo was replaced on the identity card. Maybe, but it remains to be understood who put the stamp of the Municipality on the photo of Messina Denaro.
Divorce
After the separation, which took place a few years ago, his wife, Antonella Leone, a former contractor to the Municipality, left the house in via Marsala, 300 meters as the crow flies from vicolo San Vito, and left for Northern Italy with the three children, two girls and a boy, all grown up. Antonella’s name still appears on the intercom, but in via Marsala there is now only Andrea’s mother, Maria, who was widowed very early. The man also changed his home, he now lives in Castelvetrano with a blonde woman who makes a living cleaning houses. A modest life, of sacrifices. Obviously, therefore, that he could not have the money necessary to buy another lodging in vicolo San Vito.
“As far as I know – adds the mayor of Campobello, Giuseppe Castiglione, Uil trade unionist – in addition to his employment at Evergreen, Bonafede is dedicated to cultivating land”. Maybe it produces oil he too like everyone around here? “It is possible – replies the mayor -. Since it erupted 30 years ago in Campobello the wine scandal which was made only with water and sugar, there was an agricultural reconversion: the vineyards have given way to olive groves». The mayor is also almost 60 years old, “certainly Bonafede and I went to school together as children,” he says. And he feels like sighing, because when the wine is made with water and the photos on the documents change so easily, one can hardly believe anything anymore.
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January 17, 2023
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