E fundit!

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Villas, cars and cash/ The assets of the last boss of Cosa Nostra are seized

2026-05-28 17:47:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Anti-mafia investigators in Italy have seized cash, companies and other assets worth more than 200 million euros (175 million pounds) in an operation they say targeted the network of former Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

The funds, described as "large amounts of capital" by financial police in Palermo, are said to be proceeds from more than four decades of drug trafficking linked to the alleged former head of the Cosa Nostra group.

Announcing their findings in Sicily on Thursday, investigators released a video showing masked police officers, some in riot gear, breaking down doors and climbing walls to raid a series of large luxury villas surrounded by palm-fringed lawns.

Messina Denaro spent three decades on the run until his arrest in 2023 while leaving a clinic where he was being treated for cancer. He died in custody shortly thereafter.

While on the run, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple murders, including the 1992 killing of two anti-mafia prosecutors in bomb attacks a few weeks apart.

He was also convicted of kidnapping and murdering the 12-year-old son of a mobster-turned-informant. After two years in captivity, the child was drowned and his body dissolved in acid, never to be found.

Police say their latest investigation follows some of the Cosa Nostra money trail. It involved multiple countries, including Spain and Switzerland, as well as the Cayman Islands.

Three people have been arrested and eight firms have been identified, including real estate companies said to be linked to the illicit funds.

The head of the National Antimafia Prosecutor's Office, Giovanni Melillo, called the operation "strategically important", not only because of the money recovered.

"It also aims to prevent the reformation of a criminal organization that existed until a few years ago," he said at a press conference.

"The confiscation of this wealth means continuing the process of dismantling [the criminal group] and the process of restoring structures capable of projecting the full threatening power and economic and social influence of Cosa Nostra on a global scale."

Italy's financial police say their operation began with a report from Andorra about an Italian woman with "considerable financial resources."

She turned out to be married to a drug trafficker who reportedly had close ties to Cosa Nostra and Messina Denaro himself.

The investigation turned up leads in several other places.

In total, police say more than 150 officers were involved in a global operation which ranged from using drones and thermal scanners to search for hidden amounts of cash - to deploying IT experts to track digital wallets and cryptocurrencies.

Italian media are calling the seized quantity "Denaro's drug treasure", although the amount recovered is thought to be only a small part of his network's vast wealth, which has since been reinvested around the world.