The €200 million worth in assets belonging to late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro have been seized, Italy's financial police said in statement. The fully fledged criminal drug empire, born in the 1980s, laundered money through tax havens across half the world.
The massive seizure, coordinated by the Palermo District Anti-Mafia Directorate and carried out by finance police from the provincial command in the Sicilian capital, has frozen bank accounts, companies and assets scattered across several countries.
The operation, which also involved foreign law-enforcement agencies, led to the arrest of three people.
The central figure is Giacomo Tamburello, 66, a seemingly ordinary former clothing shop owner from Campobello di Mazara, the same town where the last hideout of the Cosa Nostra boss was found.
In reality, according to investigators, Tamburello – who entered the business in his early twenties – was a “first-rank narco”, the man tasked “with handling without limits the illicit profits generated by drug-trafficking activities”, prosecutors write.
