Messina Denaro, scorched earth around the boss. And the secret archive is ever closer –

Palermo Chief Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia had said it clearly a few weeks ago: «The investigative effort is to reconstruct what happened, to look for moles from the past and more recent times, those who gave him protection even for just one day and who are in possession of his assets and who want to take his place». And it was by following Matteo Messina Denaro’s supporters, and in particular Lorenza Lanceri, one of the women with whom the boss had had a relationship, that the investigators got on the trail of the residence that is currently being searched in Mazara del Vallo (Trapani). After Messina Denaro’s capture on January 6, 2023, the investigators did not stop for a moment. In search of who allowed the former fugitive to escape justice for so long. «This network of supporters has existed and exists», explained the Prosecutor, adding that some of the names already identified are high-level professionals. The support for the boss did not come only from the blood family, but also from the mafia “family”. After his capture, the Police and Carabinieri retraced the fugitive’s movements several times, thanks to the video cameras and cells hooked up to his cell phone. And so they discovered at least on one occasion – one is certain – that Messina Denaro had arranged to meet his lover right near Mazara del Vallo. The video cameras filmed their cars at different times and then close together. A few months ago, the GUP of Palermo sentenced Lorena Lanceri, the woman who looked following the boss Matteo Messina Denaro for months while he was a fugitive, to 13 years and 8 months in a summary trial for external complicity in mafia association.

The Palermo Prosecutor’s Office recently requested a 15-year prison sentence for Laura Bonafede, the teacher from Campobello di Mazara who was romantically linked to Messina Denaro. Bonafede, daughter of the town’s historic boss, Leonardo, is accused of mafia association. The prosecution was conducted by prosecutors Piero Padova and Gianluca De Leo. The trial is being held using the abbreviated procedure. The woman, arrested in April 2023, was initially charged with aggravated aiding and abetting, which was later changed to mafia association during the investigation. The teacher is the cousin of Andrea Bonafede, the surveyor who lent his identity to the boss during the final phase of his time as a fugitive, and of two other supporters of the godfather, Emanuele and Andrea (the surveyor’s namesake). According to the Palermo Prosecutor’s Office, the defendant was a key part of the mechanism that protected Messina Denaro’s time as a fugitive for 30 years. The two, together with the woman’s daughter, Martina Gentile, under house arrest for aiding and abetting and procuring breach of sentence, are said to have lived together and have always frequented each other.

But there are also professionals who, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, have favored the boss Messina Denaro. On trial is the doctor Alfonso Tumbarello, who issued medical prescriptions to Andrea Bonafede under whose identity Matteo Messina Denaro was hiding. In recent days, the medical team of the Maddalena clinic in Palermo where he was being treated testified. The witnesses, all three oncologists, learned of Messina Denaro’s identity on the day of his arrest by the Carabinieri of the ROS with the collaboration of the GIS on January 16, 2023 following thirty years on the run. The three oncologists reported that Messina Denaro’s type of hospitalization was in an outpatient Day Service, a specialized care facility where the clinical case of the then fugitive boss was managed through the provision of visits, instrumental tests and therapeutic services and diagnostic investigations. They did not have any type of personal relationship other than that between doctor and patient. Meanwhile, the searches of the Palermo DDA, coordinated by the prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, continue, who has ordered the control of all the garages of the residential complex and an inspection of the areas of the residence of Mazara del Vallo. But the search for supporters continues. Messina Denaro “has been able to count, over time, on a protection network”. “Those who protected him 30 years ago are not the ones who protected him until the day of his capture or almost. It is clear that there are parts of the State that helped him, as it was for Bernardo Provenzano”, explained de Lucia. Investigators and investigators are hunting for the hideout where the archive of Messina Denaro might be located. During one of the interrogations, he said contemptuously to the prosecutors: “You will never find it anyway”.