Matteo Messina Denaro - Mafia Activity

Mafia Activity

After the natural death of his father in November 1998, Matteo became capo mandamento of the area including Castelvetrano and the neighbouring cities, while Vincenzo Virga ruled in the city of Trapani and its surroundings. After the arrest of Virga in 2001, Messina Denaro took over the leadership of the Mafia in the province of Trapani. He is said to command some 900 men and apparently reorganised the 20 Mafia families in Trapani into one single mandamento separated from the rest of Cosa Nostra. The Trapani Mafia is considered the zoccolo duro (solid pedestal) of Cosa Nostra and the most powerful except for the families in Palermo.

Messina Denaro gets his money through an extensive extortion racket forcing businesses to pay a pizzo (protection money) and skimming off public construction contracts (the family owns substantial sand quarries). He is also active in the international drug trade, allegedly with the Cuntrera-Caruana clan, attracting attention of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

According to the Direzione distrettuale antimafia (DDA) of Palermo, he maintains contacts with relatives in Western New York and Vito Roberto Palazzolo, a fugitive Mafia boss in South Africa. He also has interests in Venezuela and contacts with Colombian drug trafficking cartels as well as the 'Ndrangheta. His illicit networks extend to Belgium and Germany.

Matteo Messina Denaro has strong links with Mafia families in Palermo, in particular in Brancaccio, territory of the Graviano Family. Filippo Guttadauro the brother of the Giuseppe Guttadauro – the regent of the Brancaccio Mafia while Giuseppe Graviano and Filippo Graviano are in jail – is the brother-in-law of Messina Denaro. They are involved in cocaine trafficking in agreement with ‘Ndrangheta clans from Platì, Marina di Gioiosa Ionica and Siderno, as well as the Mafia family of Mariano Agate.