Police arrest Sicilian fugitive mafia boss used his identity | Mafia

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Sicilian prosecutors have arrested an Italian man who snatched his identity as mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro when he was on the run.

Andrea Bonafede, a 59-year-old Sicilian surveyor described as Dinaro’s “alter ego”, was charged Monday with helping the mobster avoid arrest and for protecting him while he was on the run.

Denaro, the last godfather of the Sicilian mafia and one of the most wanted criminals in the world, was captured in a private clinic in Palermo on January 16 – 30 years after his escape – where he was periodically treated for a tumor under the pseudonym of Andrea Bonafede.

Denaro was convicted in 2002 and sentenced in absentia to life in prison for personally killing or ordering the killing of dozens of people.

According to the judges, Bonafide presented Denaro with his identification, including his identification card, health card, and two cars. Even the house where the chief was hiding in Campobello di Mazara was registered under the name Bonafede and was bought for cash with the chief’s money. Bonafide was questioned by investigators last week and a judge on Monday placed him under arrest on charges of mafia membership.

According to the judges, Bonafede “knowingly provided Mateo Messina Denaro, for more than two years, his identity, a cache and vehicles for safe movement.”

Bonafede defended himself by saying he met Dinaro about a year ago in Campobello di Mazara, a small town in the province of Trapani, western Sicily, while he was walking down the street. Bonafide said his boss asked him to help him get treatment—doctors say Denaro has colon cancer.

However, according to investigators, “it is inconceivable that the world’s most wanted president would have asked someone he had just met on the street for help.”

Authorities say his boss has lived in Campobello for more than a year without being disturbed. He was smartly dressed, could be seen drinking espresso at the local coffee shop most mornings, dining at a pizzeria, strolling the streets, shopping, and greeting his neighbors warmly. On Tuesday, investigators found video footage recorded by a CCTV camera at Campobello Grocery Store showing his boss shopping three days before his arrest: Denaro reportedly bought ground beef, two bottles of beer and laundry detergent.

Prosecutors are still searching for Denaro’s hideouts in the town, which is an 11-minute drive from his mother’s home. So far, the carabinieri have found at least three apartments used by the gangster, including one that used a wardrobe full of clothes to hide a secret stash. Inside the stash, prosecutors found fancy clothes, emeralds and diamonds, a poster of the Francis Ford Coppola movie The Godfather and some books including biographies of Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler.

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According to Mafia informants and prosecutors, Denaro, nicknamed Diabolik (the name of a fictional thief) and U Siccu (the Thin), holds the key to some of the most heinous crimes committed by the Sicilian mafia, including the 1992 bomb attacks that killed anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and murdered Giuseppe Di Matteo in 1996, the 12-year-old son of a mobster turned state’s witness who was strangled and dissolved in acid.

Last week, Denaro was transferred to a maximum security prison in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, where last Thursday he received an initial session of chemotherapy.

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