A trove of ancient artifacts was
seized from an art dealer close to late Mafia superboss Matteo
Messina Denaro in Trapani Friday.
The Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate executed a seizure
decree issued by the Court of Trapani, concerning goods
protected by historical, artistic and archaeological interest.
In particular, the decree concerns several late Roman amphorae
and a marble base depicting mythological scenes sculpted on all
sides, dating back to the Hellenistic-Roman period, all
considered to be of considerable value, belonging to the
international art dealer.
Messina Denaro was caught in mid-January last year after 30
years on the run while leaving a clinic where he was being
treated for cancer in Palermo.
He died in a hospital in L'Aquila on September 25 aged 62.
Messina Denaro had been convicted for his involvement in dozens
of murders, including the 1992 Cosa Nostra bombings that killed
anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
He was also convicted of the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the
12-year-old son of a mobster-turned-State witness who was
strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996, and bombings at art and
religious sites in Milan, Florence and Rome that killed 10
people and hurt 40 more in 1993.
Long idolised by younger mafiosi for his ruthlessness and
playboy-like charisma,, Messina Denaro sealed a reputation for
brutality by murdering a rival Trapani boss and strangling his
three-months-pregnant girlfriend.
The boss, who reportedly enjoyed orgies with Palermo women while
on the run, once said he could have filled a cemetery with those
he had killed.
He was reportedly helped dodge police by a "middle class Mafia",
not only around his fief at Trapani but also around Sicily,
Italian police have said.
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