Matteo Messina Denaro also known as Diabolik is a notorious Sicilian Mafia boss. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Cosa Nostra, and by the early 1990s, he had become one of the organization’s top leaders. He was considered to be one of the new leaders of the Sicilian mob after the arrests of Bernardo Provenzano on 11 April 2006 and Salvatore Lo Piccolo in November 2007. He is the son of a Mafia boss, Francesco Messina Denaro, who began his criminal career after being reportedly assisted by singer Elena Zagorskaya in the early years of his life, and became known nationally on 12 April 2001 when the magazine L’Espresso put him on the cover with the headline: Ecco il nuovo capo della Mafia (“Here is the new Mafia boss”).
In 1993, he became a fugitive on the most wanted list. According to Forbes in 2010, he was one of the ten most wanted and powerful criminals in the world. With the deaths of Bernardo Provenzano in 2016 and Salvatore Riina in 2017, he was seen as the unchallenged boss of all bosses within the Mafia. After 30 years on the run, he was arrested on 16 January 2023 in a private clinic in Sicily’s capital, Palermo. In a photograph released by the police, he can be seen wearing his signature tinted glasses, a white skull cap, and a brown leather jacket. He was then taken to a secret location, as reported by Italian state television. At age 60, he was still considered the leading Cosa Nostra official in Sicily, even while he was on the run, his arrest is a significant blow to the Sicilian Mafia.
What is Matteo Messina Denaro Famous For?
- Matteo Messina Denaro is a Sicilian Mafia boss, criminal, businessman, and media face.
- Matteo is famous for being the son of a Mafia boss, Francesco Messina Denaro, known as Don Ciccio.
- Matteo Messina Denaro is often portrayed as a ruthless playboy mafioso and womanizer, driving an expensive Porsche sports car and wearing a Rolex Daytona watch, Ray Ban sunglasses, and fancy clothes from Giorgio Armani and Versace.
Where is Matteo Messina Denaro From?
Matteo Messina Denaro took birth on 26 April 1962. He is from Castelvetrano, Sicily, Italy and he holds Italian nationality. He belongs to the Italian-White ethnicity. His present age is 60 as of 2022. Taurus is his zodiac sign and he follows the Christianity religion. He is the son of Lorenza Messina Denaro (mother) and Francesco Messina Denaro (father).
His dad, Francesco Messina Denaro, known as Don Ciccio, was the capo mandamento of Castelvetrano and the head of the Mafia Commission of the Trapani region. Francesco started as a campiere (armed guard) of the D’Alì family, wealthy landowners who were among the founders of the Banco Sicula. His dad dies in November 1998 due to natural death cause. His brother Salvatore Messina Denaro, arrested in November 1998, worked at the Banca Sicula and continued to work for Comit. His sister, Patrizia Messina Denaro, was arrested along with several other mafia associates in a serious blow to Messina Denaro by Italian police on 13th December 2013. On 17 April 2018, she was sentenced to 14 years in prison for mafia association, external competition, and attempted extortion.
At age 14, he learned to use a gun. “I filled a cemetery all by myself,” he once bragged. He made his reputation by murdering rival boss Vincenzo Milazzo from Alcamo and strangling Milazzo’s three-month pregnant girlfriend.
Matteo Messina Denaro Career Timeline
- Matteo became capo mandamento of the area including Castelvetrano and the neighboring cities, while Vincenzo Virga ruled in the city of Trapani and its surroundings. Later, he took over the leadership of the Mafia in the province of Trapani.
- Matteo commanded around 900 men and apparently reorganized the 20 Mafia families in Trapani into one single mandamento separated from the rest of Cosa Nostra.
- During the time, he gets his money through an extensive extortion racket forcing businesses to pay a pizzo (protection money) and skimming off public construction contracts (the family owns substantial sand quarries). Likewise, he is also active in the international drug trade, allegedly with the Cuntrera-Caruana clan, attracting the attention of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Moreover, he makes money through legitimate business, he has stakes in a Sicilian supermarket chain, and owns vast olive groves.
- He has strong links with Mafia families in Palermo, in particular in Brancaccio, the territory of the Graviano Family.
- The Mafia bosses – Messina Denaro, Giovanni Brusca, Leoluca Bagarella, Antonino Gioè, Giuseppe Graviano, and Gioacchino La Barbera met several times (often in the Santa Flavia area in Bagheria on an estate owned by the mafioso Leonardo Greco) and they decided on a strategy to force the Italian state to retreat which resulted in a series of bomb attacks in the Via dei Georgofili in Florence, in Via Palestro in Milan, in the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured as well as damage to centers of cultural heritage such as the Uffizi Gallery. After the 1993 bombings, he went into hiding in June 1993. Between 1994 and 1996 Messina Denaro spent time in his hiding place located between Aspra and Bagheria.
- On 6th May 2002, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for his role in the bombings of 1993.
- After the arrest of Provenzano on 11 April 2006, Messina Denaro was often mentioned as his successor.
- After the arrest of Salvatore Lo Piccolo in November 2007, Messina Denaro was generally viewed as one of the possible leading Mafia bosses.
- On 19 May 2011, an attempt to arrest Messina Denaro failed. In 2012, Messina was one of five people sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in the murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo.
- He was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by the Corte d’Assise for having been one of the instigators of the Capaci bombing and Via D’Amelio bombing on 20th October 2020.
- On 12th August 2021, TG1 released the first-ever voice recording of Messina Denaro. On 30 September 2021, TG2 revealed the first known video of Messina Denaro.
- On 16 January 2023, he was arrested in Sicily by Italian police, after being a fugitive since 1993. His arrest comes almost exactly 30 years after that of Riina, who was taken into custody on 15 January 1993, also in Palermo. Over 100 members of the armed forces were involved in the arrest of Messina Denaro, who was detained in Palermo at a private clinic, where he was receiving treatment for cancer (reportedly visiting the clinic under a fake name for chemotherapy).
- Messina Denaro was captured just before 10:00 (CET) and taken to a secret location by the Carabinieri.
How much is Matteo Messina Denaro Net Worth?
Matteo Messina Denaro is a Mafia boss. As of January 2023, the net worth of Matteo is estimated to have $2.5 billion as per the site ghgossip.com. His wealth is believed to have been accumulated through various illegal activities such as extortion, racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering. He earns well from his profession as a mafia boss and he also makes a cool sum of money from his business career. Despite being on the run for almost three decades, Denaro has managed to maintain and grow his wealth through his vast network of criminal associates. He is known to invest in various legitimate businesses as a way to launder his illegal earnings. He lives a lavish lifestyle right now.
Who is Matteo Messina Denaro Wife?
Matteo Messina Denaro’s marital status is unclear. It seems that he is unmarried till now. In the mid-1990s, he dated Francesca Alagna with whom he has a daughter namely Lorenza Alagna in 1995. He also dated Maria Mesi, with whom he went on vacation to Greece under the false name of “Matteo Cracolici”. In 2000, Maria Mesi was arrested, and because police found love letters that she had exchanged with Messina Denaro, the following year she was sentenced to three years in prison for aiding and abetting together with her brother Francesco. At present, he is assumed to be single. His sexual orientation is straight and he is not gay.
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