Cosa Nostra is in need of a replacement for Matteo Messina Denaro as the reference point for major deals. “There are already those who are ready to take his place,” said Palermo Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia on January 16th. Just a few hours before, the most wanted mafia boss in the world had been arrested after being on the run for 30 years. He passed away on the night of September 24th, 2023, due to complications related to stage 4 colon cancer.
Eight months have passed, but what has happened in the meantime? Who has taken the reins of the last boss responsible for massacres? Who will replace the last of the Corleonesi, who died last night from stage 4 colon cancer that had forced him to stay in the inmate ward of San Salvatore dell’Aquila hospital in recent weeks? The investigations are far from over after his death. In fact, they continue at a rapid pace, both to uncover the networks of protections and collusions that allowed Messina Denaro to remain a fugitive for thirty years, and to understand who has replaced him. Because the boss was never the head of Cosa Nostra, like Riina or Provenzano. As Prosecutor de Lucia said, “The Palermo clans would never accept being led by a non-Palermo native. Starting with someone from Trapani” like Messina Denaro, originally from Castelvetrano.
However, his figure was considered significant in the upper echelons of Cosa Nostra. “The goal of the mafia is always the same: to identify new leaders and management structures. Unlike the Camorra, the mafia has a structure with a single head,” the Palermo prosecutor said in the press conference following the capture of the Castelvetrano boss. “Cosa Nostra tends to rebuild its leadership. Now they will have to replace Matteo Messina Denaro as the reference point for major deals. There are already those who are ready to take his place.”
Who? Have the mafia families already chosen a new godfather? Since the death of the “Boss of Bosses” Totò Riina, Cosa Nostra’s only objective has been to reconstitute the Cupola, an organized body within its hierarchical structure, to make the most important decisions and bring order to the entire organization. From Stefano Fidanzati, 70 years old, from the Fidanzati dell’Arenella family of drug traffickers, to Giuseppe Auteri, known as Vassoio, who is currently on the run, as well as Sandro Capizzi, the son of boss Benedetto Capizzi from the Santa Maria di Gesù clan. In 2018, some bosses, as discovered by the Dda of Palermo, organized a summit to revive the provincial commission of Cosa Nostra, with the choice of a new boss of bosses. (by Elvira Terranova)