Italy seizes more than R$1 billion in operation linked to mafia boss
Italy's financial police announced this Thursday (28) the seizure of assets and companies valued at more than €200 million (approximately R$1.1 billion) in an investigation into money laundering from drug trafficking, linked to the late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro.
Messina Denaro was arrested in 2023 after spending 30 years on the run for his role in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra's war against the state in the 1980s and 1990s, which included the assassination of Attorney General Giovanni Falcone.
Nicknamed "U Siccu" (the skinny one), Messina Denaro died of cancer just months after his arrest, leaving prosecutors the task of tracking down the profits of his criminal empire and those who helped him escape justice.
Police said the operation closed a complex investigation that tracked a vast array of assets generated by the reinvestment of drug trafficking profits accumulated since the 1980s in several European and non-European countries.
"We believe we have identified a significant part of the investments made by the mafia, including abroad," said Palermo's chief prosecutor, Maurizio de Lucia.
The son of a mafia boss, Messina Denaro was born in the town of Castelvetrano, in western Sicily, near Trapani, and led the local Cosa Nostra clan.
Strongly linked to powerful boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina, he was involved in bombings in Florence, Rome and Milan, which killed ten people in 1993, and is believed to have been responsible for numerous murders in the 1990s.
Operation findings
At least three people were arrested in the investigation, which involved places such as Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, but focused on Andorra, the small principality in the Pyrenees, a mountain range in Europe.
Police said they had traced funds to a woman from Campobello di Mazara, the Sicilian town where Messina Denaro had her last hiding place, who had been married to a man with a history of drug-related crimes.
"Based on these findings, investigators began to suspect that the funds in Andorra were linked to drug trafficking," the statement said.
Prosecutors identified eight companies linked to the money laundering network: five in Spain, two in Gibraltar and one in the Cayman Islands.
The group held a "very significant" stake in a Lebanese bank, as well as gold and luxury real estate.
Giovanni Melillo, Italy's national anti-mafia prosecutor, said it was crucial to target the criminal organization's assets.
"(This) means continuing the process of dismantling necessary to prevent the emergence of structures capable of projecting, on a global scale, all the intimidating power and economic influence of Cosa Nostra."
Source: CNN