She went to detectives after seeing the photo of the man she had been dating for months. "I had no idea of his true identity, he presented himself to me under another name. I couldn't have known that he was Matteo Messina Denaro," he says in Vicolo San Vito's apartment, in Campobello di Mazara, where the 'capo' spent his last days as a free man, the hiding place where the investigators found documents, telephones and pizzini (pieces of paper that are passed from hand to hand, between messengers, with secret codes).
He assures that he has never raised suspicions, he speaks of his ex-lover as a kind, attentive man. Investigators, however, are not convinced that he is telling the whole truth and seek confirmation of his revelations. But this woman is not the only one who has turned to investigators in recent days.
Since Messina Denaro was arrested on January 16, many people have appeared before the carabinieri. A parade of witnesses after 30 years of silence. That renewed civic sense depends, for some, on the fear of legal consequences. In fact, in the house of the head of the Cosa Nostra, the police found many numbers on his mobile phones: contacts with people Messina Denaro knew the last year in which he lived almost as a common man.
Tracking down the identities of the mafia boss's interlocutors is not difficult. For this reason, many anticipate the next movements of justice and appear before the authorities to report their occasional visits, short or long, to the 'godfather'.
For example, the removal company in charge of taking the kingpin's furniture from the hideout on Via San Giovanni to his last refuge, as well as the owner of the Palermo dealership where Messina Denaro went with the documents of his last alias, Andrea Bonafede, to buy a motorcycle The restaurateurs who saw him in his premises, the patients of the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, who met him during chemotherapy, as well as several women, have also been reported.
A revelation, the latter, that did not surprise the investigators, who have known for a long time that the mafia boss has a soft spot for the female sex.
All of them swear, however, that they never suspected that they were in front of the 'great wanted man'. The fact that Messina Denaro used false identities has been proven true: prosecutors always suspected it and now they have confirmed it. In the last apartment that the capo occupied, five identification documents were found in the name of as many people, compatible by age with the mafia boss, alive and, apparently, with clean records.
These discovered identity documents would have guaranteed the former fugitive safety for at least 15 years. And they would have also allowed him to travel abroad and take care of his million-dollar business. Palermo DDA magistrates are investigating the five forged documents and must determine if the mafia boss had pre-compiled files and limited himself to posting his photo or if he had the complicity of the person in charge of the release. And also, if the aliases used were aware of the use that the employer made of those identities.
There are two people, however, about whom prosecutors have no doubt: Giovanni Luppino, the man who drove to Messina Denaro to undergo chemotherapy on the day of his arrest. And Andrea Bonafede, a surveyor from Campobello de Mazara and one of Denaro's closest collaborators. The man who gave his identity to the mobster and who came to buy the houses in which he hid. Both Andrea and Giovanni are in prison.
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