Mafia Boss Names Playboy As Successor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
ROME – The recently arrested head of the Mafia has appointed as his successor a trigger-happy playboy who has been on the run for 13 years.
The promotion of Matteo “Diabolik” Messina Denaro, 43, was revealed in a letter written by a 73-year-old former “boss of all bosses,” Bernardo Provenzano, who was seized by police two weeks ago at a farmhouse near Corleone, in Sicily.
“Matteo, the head of the Mafia will be you,” Mr. Provenzano wrote a week before he was discovered. It is not certain that the instructions were received.
Mr. Denaro, who once boasted that “I filled a cemetery all by myself,” was born in western Sicily and by 14 had learned to use a gun. He later sealed a reputation for brutality by murdering a rival gang leader and strangling his pregnant girlfriend.
His last known photograph, taken 13 years ago, shows him in Ray Ban sunglasses and an Armani suit.
His nickname “Diabolik” comes from a comic book and he is an icon for the younger Mafiosi.
The FBI believes that he is one of the world’s biggest drug dealers, and he is also thought to be responsible for a series of bombings in Rome, Florence, and Milan in the early 1990s.
Messrs. Denaro and Provenzano were long thought to be enemies. However, in recent times they have been reconciled. Italian police even found two of Mr. Denaro’s hideouts on territory controlled by Mr. Provenzano.
It now appears that the relationship between the two men was almost like father and son, according to a series of notes, released by investigators to Italian newspapers. The letters found at Mr. Provenzano’s hut reveal the inner workings of the Cosa Nostra. Many are banal.
