Sicilian Mafia Dealt a New Blow With Arrest of “Last Godfather”

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ROME — The arrest of Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro deals a powerful blow to the mythology of the Cosa Nostra, toppling a symbol of the group’s resistance to police efforts to break up organized crime.

Messina Denaro, 60, was Italy’s most wanted mafia boss and had been on the run for three decades. He was sentenced to a life sentence in absentia for his role as a murderer in 1992 of Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, anti-mafia lawyers.

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His arrest comes nearly 30 years after Salvatore was captured by police “Toto” Riina, Cosa Nostra’s biggest figure of the 20th century, and marks the last step in efforts to dismantle the group’s historical clan leadership.

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Experts describe Cosa Nostra as a movie star whose fame was amplified through movies like “The Godfather,” An ailing crime syndicate facing many difficulties, including competition in highly lucrative drugs markets.

Cosa Nostra has retained control over its Sicilian territory but is unable to penetrate the wider economy. It has been replaced by Calabrian groups. ‘Ndrangheta in the drugs trade.

“Messina Denaro was the last godfather, he represented all the secrets of Cosa Nostra. It is the end of a myth and the organization will have to cope with this,” said Anna Sergi, an expert in organized crime at England’s Essex University.

Sergi stated that it wasn’t clear who would replace Messina denaro in a mafia with more factionalized elements.

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“If Cosa Nostra wants to rebuild the leadership it had in the past it needs directives, but there are no big chiefs anymore,” Sergi spoke to Reuters and said that the group would like to attempt to establish connections with American clans.

SHEDDING LUCK ON MASSACRES

Messina Denaro was among the masterminds of Cosa Nostra’s bombing strategy of the early 1990s which triggered national outrage and forced politicians to act, introducing waves of anti-mafia laws and making hundreds of arrests.

“That ‘declaration of war’ The state was certainly weaker when it encouraged other groups like the ‘Ndrangheta,” said Federico Cafiero De Raho, a former national anti-mafia prosecutor and a lawmaker with the opposition 5-Star Movement.

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Any revelation from Messina Denaro on the group’s activities – including 1993 bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan which killed 10 people – could be a further major development.

“According to all knowledge, he had a role in the bombings and further developments are possible,” said Gian Carlo Caselli, who served as chief prosecutor in Palermo at the time of Riina’s arrest.

Riina Provenzano and Bernardo Provenzano are the Corleonesi clan leaders. However, they refused to speak to investigators after their arrest. Other important members of Corleonesi did not break the code.

Federico Varese, professor of Criminology at Oxford University, said the fact that Messina Denaro – a native of a town in western Sicily – had been arrested in the island’s capital of Palermo says much about how Cosa Nostra still works.

“Mafias are really not global, fluid,” He spoke to Reuters. “On the contrary, they are very rooted in their territory and fugitives who want to maintain some sort of control and role in the organization hang around the place where they operate.” (Reporting by Angelo Amante. Additional reporting by Alvise Armeniallini. Editing by Nick Macfie.