Exactly. The Netherlands plays a major role in the international drug trade. 90% of organized crime in the Netherlands has to do with drugs.

When it comes to synthetic drugs like MDMA the Dutch organized crime networks (in particular those of North Brabant ) are arguably the biggest players in the world together with Israeli organized crime.

People are always talking about the cocaine trafficking gangs that are based in the Netherlands because the cocaine business generates the most violence, but a lot seem to forget that the xtc and amphetamine production in the Netherlands has a yearly turnover of close to 19 billion. On a global scale I'd wager that the Dutch networks involved in synthetic drugs are bigger than the ones involved in cocaine.

In the past 4-5! In italy we fight from an half centy and I dont think in Holland there nothingcthat can be compared with Mafia,Camorra and Ndrangheta.

And don't forget the thousands of cannabis farms from very small to an industrial scale.

I didn't compare them , but you can't say that Netherlands doesn't have OC problems in the past few years. There were even some high profile murders. Spain also have OC problem , Italy has biggest problem with OC in Europe. I don't consider Russia having OC problem because its all state controlled.

Europe has many problems, but organized crime is one of the few industries that work together very well from north to south from east to west.

The thing is when business goes smooth we hear nothing about them, the things we hear everyday from Italy is because of the anti-mafia they have become also a force with ties to the media. The Italians do a very good job everyday we can read about the Mafias.

Can you believe that some idiot on Facebook argued with me saying that big fugitives like Matteo Messina Denaro and Bernardo Provenzano could last decades on the run without any help from the government? That there was no corruption, that it was all due to their criminal contacts and money? I hope that moron is a member of this blog and is reading this.

I agree. Imo, the mafia without political and law enforcement protection wouldn't be a Mafia anymore, but little more than a street gang. Corrupt connections with the state are one of the main factors to differentiate mafia-type organizations from "normal" crime, like gangs etc.

Messina Denaro in irreversible coma

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 22 - One-time top Mafia fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro, caught after 30 years on the run in a Palermo cancer clinic in mid-January, is now in an irreversible coma, sources at L'Aquila hospital said Friday.
Denaro, 61, hospitalised in the prison ward of L'Aquila hospital, won't come out of the coma and this evening the doctors will suspend his nutrition, they said.
Messina Denaro had been in hospital for over a month.
The intestinal surgery he underwent on August 8 was successful but the mobster's advanced colon cancer caused an irreversible deterioration in his state of health, the sources said.
The Cosa Nostra superboss has been convicted for his involvement in dozens of murders, including the 1992 bombings that killed anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
In addition to the Falcone and Borsellino assassinations, he has been condemned for 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. (ANSA).

Good post Strax. Thanks.

Yeah, Messina Denaro is done!

23 September 2023 Editorial board
The Prosecutor's Office requests the trial of Messina Denaro's driver

The hearing of the investigating judge of the Court of Palermo will be held on November 10th, who will have to decide on the request for indictment against Giovanni Luppino, the man who accompanied Matteo Messina Denaro to the "La Maddalena" clinic in Palermo on the day where the boss was arrested. The Prosecutor's Office requested the trial. Luppino was initially accused of aggravated aiding and abetting and failure to comply with the sentence. Recently the prosecutors also accused him of having a mafia association.

Luppino, an agricultural entrepreneur who ended up in prison on January 16th , the day of Messina Denaro's arrest, claimed to have met the man then taken to the clinic with the name of Francesco through Andrea Bonafede (the man who lent the alias to the boss ) and that I didn't see him again for months. «He came on Sunday evening to tell me to take him to the nursing home for treatment and I did», he told the investigating judge during the interrogation. Just by seeing the soldiers, Luppino would have asked the acquaintance if they were looking for him. And Messina Denaro would finally make his true identity clear. This version was not believed by the magistrates.

Giovanni Luppino together with his two sons has been managing a storage and marketing center for table olives in Campobello di Mazara for some years.

The Luppinos act as intermediaries with the Neapolitan wholesalers who then buy the batches of olives.

The last wishes of Matteo Messina Denaro: «I don't want religious funeral from this corrupt Church»
SEPTEMBER 24, 2023 - 08:21
by Editorial Staff

The boss at the end of his life, the "testament" appears in a pizzino from 10 years ago: «I reject every religious celebration made up of unclean men who live in hatred and sin»

The last wishes of Matteo Messina Denaro appear , the boss one step away from death after entering an irreversible coma due to the advanced colon cancer that has gripped him for some time. An anomalous will, that of Messina Denaro, but in line with the identity of the super-boss: it is in fact contained in a pizzino. The contents are revealed today by La Repubblicawhich makes it known that in the most important note handwritten by the number 1 boss of Cosa Nostra it appears that Messina Denaro had no intention of wanting a funeral in church. "I reject every religious celebration because it is made up of unclean men who live in hatred and sin", writes the boss in the pizzino, found by the ROS carabinieri in the boss' hideout in Campobello di Mazara after his arrest on 16 January. The boss continues in the note: "It is not those who proclaim themselves the soldiers of God who can decide and execute my lifeless body, they will not be the ones who refuse my funeral." Words that Messina Denaro wrote well before his capture, and even before discovering that he was suffering from cancer. The pizzino dates back, in fact, to May 2013,


«My relationship with God is pure, not politicized»
«The relationship with God is personal, he doesn't want intermediaries and above all he doesn't want any earthly executor. Anathemas are human expressions, certainly not of those who are only spirit and forgiveness", wrote the boss. Hence the decision: «It is I who, in full conscience and science, reject all this because I believe that my relationship with faith is pure, spiritual and authentic, not contaminated and politicized. God will be my justice, my forgiveness, my spirituality. Anyone who dares to hunt and deem my person unworthy like today doesn't know that he will never have the chance to do so because I don't allow it, I won't give him the chance." Meanwhile, Messina Denaro's clinical conditions continue to worsen. And in Castelvetrano everything is already ready for his funeral: the tomb has been placed next to his father Francesco, known as "Don Ciccio", also a former fugitive who was found after his death already dressed for the funeral.

He is done, i don't think he will get to see new year.

He probably could've died a fugitive, but didn't want to. It's looking more and more to me like he turned himself in.

He said to his friends he would commit suicide, but he wanted also to make peace with daughter, that has happened. His family can't visit him anymore. He will die in the coming days.

Cosa Nostra will be without a leader.

Lol, if he's been in that shape they've already been without a leader for a while now. The Mafia is not Matteo Messina Denaro, and Matteo Messina Denaro is not the Mafia. Cosa Nostra will always survive.

I am sure that is what happened , back in November 2022 Boiardo said: "May a little gift arrive?...Maybe, let's assume, that a Matteo Messina Denaro is very ill and makes a deal to surrender himself to make a sensational arrest?" . He also said that it would happen on a "special date" , the same date that Riina was arrested. There is no way he knew all that and that is all coincidence

He was not the boss of bosses, but he was the face of Cosa Nostra for many years many young guys idolised him!

Very true , he was not boss of bosses but his word was very respected and often final on a lot of important decisions.

I just don't want this to turn into one of those "It's the end of the mob" spills as so often happens when a major figure dies or goes to prison. Happens every time never fails. Many people out there think that the mob died when they put Gotti away, but can't even tell you about the guys who came after him, like Frank Cali, Domenico Cefalu, Lorenzo Mannino, etc. The public at large never even heard of them.

Him dying is not the end of it Riina died, Provenzano died but his death could bring a crisis within Cosa Nostra.

I doubt it, I'd say that they've grown used to his absence. He's practically already dead.

RIP Matteo Messina Denaro

Translated with Google from Corriere:

Matteo Messina Denaro died today from the consequences of stage four colon cancer. The mafia boss of Castelvetrano was in the inmate ward of the San Salvatore hospital in L'Aquila. The arrest, after 30 years on the run, dates back to January this year .

He lost his challenge to the state by just eight months, but he lost it. Eight months spent in "hard prison", in the cell of the L'Aquila penitentiary and then in that of the city hospital, due to the tumor that had caused his capture on January 16th and has now killed him.

" You took me for the illness, without it you wouldn't have taken me ", he had said in a provocative tone to the Palermo prosecutor de Lucia and his deputy Paolo Guido, in the February interrogation, after the arrest. "In the meantime we have taken it", replied the prosecutor in kind, claiming the final result of a match played by Matteo Messina Denaro to die in hiding like his father Francesco, the Castelvetrano boss wanted since 1990 and returned as a corpse to the State and its family members in 1998.

His son Matteo, who inherited his legacy as mafia boss , wanted to emulate him in this too and remained a fugitive for almost thirty years. Not a record, because for example Bernardo Provenzano was arrested 43 years after the first arrest order, but he remained the only boss at large among those convicted for the massacres of 1992 and 1993 : Giovanni Falcone and his wife, Paolo Borsellino , the escort agents and then the innocent victims killed and injured between Florence, Milan and Rome.

A defeat that the State could not accept, and which it managed to avoid with the last move, ensuring that the elusive godfather of Castelvetrano spent at least the final stretch of his life in prison. Without getting anything from him other than the proud display of not wanting to repent .

"I have never slandered anyone and I will die without slandering anyone , this is Messina Denaro", he proclaimed before judge Alfredo Montalto in another judicial face-to-face, a month after the arrest. "I will never be sorry" , he had anticipated three days earlier to the prosecutors, with the prosecutor De Lucia ready to take up the challenge: "I understood it, but did I ask you to collaborate?". "No". "So?". "I have to thank her because you kept your word, she saw me and said "I will be treated", and I said thank you, and it was true." Until his last breath, with the National Health Service taking care of himboth as a wanted man, when he was operated on and subjected to specialist therapies under a false name, and as a prisoner, finally accepting the mafioso's request not to be resuscitated in the event of a coma.

In recent times, however, when he realized that the sand in the hourglass was running out, the mafia boss began to make demands, insisting on having everything he was entitled to according to his own interpretation of laws and regulations; no longer the haughty and proud boss, but an ordinary prisoner who sees the end .

In the writings entrusted to a sort of diary found in his hideout in Campobello di Mazara (notebooks full of thoughts and words elaborated over the years), he had noted among other things: «I have always thought it would be nice to know when my last night on earth rather than get hit by a car or something." Better a conscious and somewhat expected death than a sudden and unexpected one. Perhaps to have time to say goodbye to the family , which has always been central to Messina Denaro's life. With whom he finally wanted to join his daughter Lorenza , whom he had in hiding but never met before the capture , who after the talks behind barshe asked and obtained to bear his father's surname .

Family of blood but also of mafia , in which almost no one remained immune from investigations or arrests. Apart from the patriarch who managed to avoid prison, Matteo's only brother and two out of four of Matteo's sisters, four out of four brothers-in-law, and then nephews, cousins ??and various relatives have passed through a cell (or still are there): all under investigation for complicity with Cosa Nostra and for having protected the fugitive of the heir whose photo they keep in their homes next to that of the deceased founder.

Matteo, on the other hand, was alive and impregnable , with the entire family dedicated to ensuring that he remained so. They succeeded until one of the sisters, Rosalia , unknowingly offered the ROS carabinieri the route to the La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, with that piece of paper hidden inside the leg of a chair where she had transcribed the medical records of her sick brother. There she shattered the mission of the boss and his family unit, sacrificed to guarantee the impregnability of the mafia boss of the province of Trapani.

Role that Messina Denaro has covered without confusing it with that of "boss of bosses" of Cosa Nostra already occupied by Riina , indeed stepping out when the other bosses asked him to reconstitute the Dome, perhaps fearing the outbreak of conflicts (including armed ones) that he no longer wanted to face.

Despite having remained a faithful ally of the Corleonesi - in the mafia wars fought in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as in the terrorist strategy deployed with the attacks of '92 and '93, where he was first a soldier and then a strategist - Matteo 'is in fact subsequently aligned with the "submersion" strategy adopted by Bernardo Provenzano , after the arrest of Riina and his most faithful followers.

The godfather of Castelvetrano had a relationship with the other Corleonese boss marked by respect and cordiality , as can be read in the obsequious but proud letters in which he asked for his intervention to resolve issues between opposing clans; although in interrogations he denied ever knowing him "visually", that is, in person, but only through TV. Putting forward a rather surreal version to justify the correspondence where he and Provenzano talked about business , as if he had been forced to turn to a near-stranger: «When you lead a certain type of life, I am a fugitive accused of mafia, he is a fugitive accused of mafia , where we go?".

Matteo Messina Denaro died with several life sentences on his shoulders , inflicted on him for at least fourteen murders plus massacres , but until the end he maintained that he only knew about the mafia from the newspapers. As real mafiosi have always done. Admitting only that his only goal was to make money. Moving between Italy and abroad, where he said he went often starting from 2006, after Provenzano's arrest and the discovery of the pizzini that he had sent him. Written on the computer. That computer that the investigators are still looking for , not being satisfied with the accounting of current expenses jotted down on the sheets spread by him and his sister. But the mafia boss denied ever having used it; as well ashe denied having the availability of other hideouts besides those discovered (which magistrates and investigators continue to search for: the most important and secret papers must be kept there which probably guaranteed him protection during such a long absence, which only ended due to illness ). However, adding: "If I had these things, I would never give them, it doesn't make sense for my type of mentality."

Like money. Where did he hide them? How did he invest them, and through whom? “If I have something I don't say it, it would be stupid,” he replied to the judge. Secrets destined to remain secrets, perhaps even more so now that the boss is dead.

Is it true that he had Riina's archive with him , brought to safety from the hideout which was not searched after the arrest in January '93 by other mafiosi who took care to paint the walls to prevent fingerprints from being taken? It is another question that has not been answered, not even after the capture of Messina Denaro. If that archive exists and he kept it, it will now be even more difficult to find it. The boss continued to deny everything, but always in his own way. Telling the prosecutors that he is not a mafia member but that he "knows the mentality of the mafiosi" because of the environment where he was born and raised; if he had been - he added - in his house the investigators would not have found the "pizzini" that they are still working on and which have already led to some arrests, but "only the prints on the wall and the furniture". As happened in '93 in Riina's hideout, precisely. «So you know something about painting walls before and after the arrests?», the investigators tried to frame him, trying to glean something about that still mysterious affair. «No, I don't know anything», he immediately shut up.

A way to speak without saying anything , remaining the custodian of the mafia's secrets - about the excellent crimes, the massacres, the relationships with politics and power, the protections it enjoyed - even after losing the challenge with the State . Even for the only eight months of life he had left.

https://www.corriere.it/cronache/23...228172-509d-11ee-a355-a30027630bcd.shtml

Thanks for the info.

Funny thing – at least in my amateurish mind – is that if Matteo was not the boss of bosses – who is it then? As we may recall boss of bosses Provenzano was arrested in 2006 and died 10 years later. Now all of the sudden prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia is running around yelling that Matteo was never the boss of bosses. Well, assuming that the Cosa Nostra rules he's referring to are correct and absolute then I suppose it's true: Matteo could not be the boss of bosses. However, in that case we must now ask at least the following: 1) who is the boss of bosses?, 2) why haven't we heard about him – ever?, 3) is there a warrant for arrest for this mysterious boss of bosses?

For some reason prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia himself seems to be vague about this. Or how should we interpret "was not technically" in this context? I cannot help but think that this is just some kind of odd psychological mumbo-jumbo aimed at Matteo's glorification – particularly among younger dudes in Trapani area – the authorities have been so concerned about.

Translated with Google from De Telegraaf:

'However, according to prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, Messina Denaro was not the highest-ranking man within the infamous mafia clan. “He was not technically the head of Cosa Nostra. According to the rules of the Cosa Nostra, it must always come from the province of Palermo. Corleone is also part of the province of Palermo.”

In conversation with De Telegraaf, De Lucia did not want to say who that head is and whether there is a successor to Messina Denaro. “There are several people who could take his place and we are working on them.”'

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/636...s-liet-slachtoffers-in-zoutzuur-oplossen

Is there a real boss of bosses today at all? Maybe there is only a nominal chairman of the commission without the absolute power Toto' Riina had. Or, even if there really still is a boss of bosses, he probably is indeed from the Palermo province, it has always been the most powerful one, even more than Trapani (Matteo Messina Denaro is from the Trapani province).

Several years ago, it was said that Settimo Mineo was the new boss of the Palermo province, but he is in jail now, I think.

Yeah, who knows what the truth is.

Regarding Settimo the stories are mainly nonsensical. For example, in this article, Bernardo Provenzano is not mentioned at all and it's as if Toto Riina would've been the boss of bosses even after his arrest until his death. If that was the case, what then was the role of Provenzano? And how did Toto run Cosa Nostra from prison after his arrest in January 1993 where he was under 41-bis restrictions? Exactly.

https://www.agi.it/cronaca/mafia_arresto_settimo_mineo-4701003/news/2018-12-04/