Maurizio de Lucia led the investigation against mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro. He considers Cosa Nostra weakened, but continues to ask questions.

Giuseppe Cimarosa has always been active against the mafia: he celebrates the arrest of his uncle Messina Denaro on January 19 and 23. Photo: Remo Casilli/rtr

taz: Mr. de Lucia, how did you experience the day of Matteo Messina Denaro's arrest exactly one year ago in Palermo?

Mauricio de Lucía: In reality, it all started earlier, on the morning of January 14. Since that day we have reason to believe that Andrea Bonafede, who had an appointment at the La Maddalena private clinic in Palermo on Monday, January 16, was actually Matteo Messina Denaro. Here begins the last part of a very long story. This Monday I met my colleague Paolo Guidi, who carried out the investigation with me, at 6:50 am. Then we did everything we could from the office in an hour and a half, the carabinieri had to work on the spot and we stayed here almost blind, waiting for information, even with drones monitoring the situation.

How did you know Andrea Bonafede had a date?

We have been monitoring the clinic's server for some time. When we recorded Andrea Bonafede logging in, the alarm went off. Messina Denaro, whom we had not yet identified, waited in the parking lot after checking in to be called; It was still Corona times. He was calm. The police closed all the doors. We identified it, the image from the cameras has been transmitted to all mobile phones. Here in the office my colleague Guida had put on the jacket, who has an even more southern temperament than me, in the sense that he came and went excitedly and said every five minutes: “He escaped, he escaped.”

Understandable!

Then a journalist calls me and asks me what is happening at the Maddalena Clinic, big movement, carabinieri. I tell him I don't know, it's probably some kind of control, but a few minutes later I received confirmation that we had caught him. In my opinion, there was a moment of justifiable satisfaction for everyone present. But then we became sensible. We were interested in catching him but we also wanted to get as much information as possible, so the searches began, we identified the house where he was hiding, etc.

How did people react during and after the event?

There was a bit of resentment because people didn't come to the clinic or couldn't leave. But there were no major protests. And that is an important fact for Palermo: the image of normal people, 301a4792,vid:4k75vFUazK4,st:0:applauding the carabinieri. This shows that ordinary people are no longer neutral but are on the side of the State. This is a positive indicator of Palermo's civic growth.

How did the policy behave?

Politicians took advantage of the arrest. She can do that too. It depends on the perspective. If all this is seen as a victory for one political party, the one currently in power, then that is wrong. But if it is seen as a victory for the entire country, which fought together against the mafia, then it is a good thing.

And the reactions in society?

Ten minutes after his arrest, the cultural spaces – let's call them that – of this country began to think about why they captured him, why they didn't capture him sooner. In the few public statements I have made, I have called these people conspiracy theorists. Because for them what counts is not what really happens, but what they think about it. You cannot say an hour before the arrest that “the State of Messina has been protecting Denaro for ten years” and an hour later: “Who knows why he was arrested” – I quote here the expert Nando dalla Chiesa.

But the question is obvious: How come the state of Messina did not capture Denaro sooner?

I can't give a simple answer to that. My job is to find the people who specifically contributed to this disappearance. Nine of them have already been identified and brought to trial; the most recent conviction occurred last Friday. Then, of course, there are things I can't say. But the truth is that Messina Denaro benefited from being able to count on the people of the area where he was.

In Campobello di Mazara in the province of Trapani, near his birthplace..

Exactly. He lived in a climate where many people knew who he was and everyone acted as if they didn't know. It can also be assumed that there were corrupt elements in state institutions. But within thirty years they have probably already been eliminated. But the worst thing is that Messina Denaro not only lived underground, but was someone who, from that underground, was in charge of Cosa Nostra until the end. The organization offered him a safety net, medical care, trips and vacations. Regular meetings were held at which many mafia transactions were discussed, especially in relation to tenders in the construction sector.

Was he not a passive refugee?

Not at all. He was very active.

What is Cosa Nostra today?

La Cosa Nostra is without a doubt a criminal organization. Because we must distinguish a vague concept of mafia from an organized criminal structure. That's what Giovanni Falcone taught us: if everything is mafia, nothing is mafia. Cosa Nostra has always put its forces at the disposal of that part of society that preferred illegality to the rules of the rule of law: the mafia bourgeoisie. A characteristic of Cosa Nostra are the channels of communication between the mafia organization, on the one hand, and an important part of the political-administrative class of Sicily, on the other, especially in Palermo. This exchange has allowed the organization to become a political actor. Thanks to the work of the State, Cosa Nostra is in a moment of weakness, there is no longer strategic direction. However, the rules that allow gangsters to be gangsters remain, currently at a low level. The issue they are working on – and we are also working on – is that to be strong again they need money. And they did not do it, relatively speaking clearly, because the confiscation of their assets from the last thirty years was very important. So how do they get a lot of money illegally and quickly? With drug trafficking. And indeed, we are currently witnessing a whole series of new business relations, in particular with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia.

How dangerous is Cosa Nostra?

La Cosa Nostra conspires and corrupts, but we must never forget: when corruption does not work, military power is always the central force to be reckoned with. The mafia does not function without reserve machine guns. That's your nature, otherwise you don't do business and you don't count for anything. The mafia is always the mafia.

How do you look to the future?

The big risk at this moment is that a part of the aforementioned mafia bourgeoisie, which has always been in contact with Cosa Nostra, wants to continue doing business with it, perhaps without realizing how weak it has become. But Cosa Nostra is an elastic structure. And it is precisely this open channel that is one of the reasons why it can be strong again. Therefore, our main topic in the investigation is not the current supply of the mafia, but the demand for its services.