A sadistic smoothie idolised by Cosa Nostra's younger troops is tipped to become the new head of Italy's Mafia, police say.
Experts have broken coded messages received by aged chieftain Bernardo Provenzano since his arrest earlier this month and found evidence of an "affectionate" bond with the charismatic Matteo Messina Denaro, police said Thursday. The young boss from the western Sicilian city of Trapani recently sent more messages than any other Mafia leader to the sheepfarm outside Corleone where Provenzano, 73, was smoked out on April 11 after 43 years in hiding.
In all of them he addresses the widely venerated Don in "intimate" terms, police said.
He inquires after Provenzano's health, discusses Cosa Nostra management headaches like keeping local businessmen and politicians in line and complains about the scarcity and poor quality of recruits.
Messina Denaro signs off each note as "your nephew Alessio".
All these are signs that the Armani-clad, Ray-Ban-wearing 'playboy' has poked his nose in front of the older Palermo rackets king Salvatore Lo Piccolo in the line of Mob succession, police said.
Messina Denaro, who just turned 44, has been on the run for 13 years but has still managed to become one of the world's top drug dealers, according to a recent FBI report. Until this week Mafia experts were fairly certain Messina Denaro and Lo Piccolo wouldn't fight to claim Provenzano's throne.
But they had been been unsure whether Cosa Nostra would become a two-man show - rather like Provenzano's arrangement with his more blood-thirsty fellow Corleonese, Toto' 'the Beast' Riina - or if one of the pair would edge ahead. Lo Piccolo, 63, from Palermo's Mafia-ridden San Lorenzo district, has been 'on the run' (that is, in hiding in friendly quarters) for 23 years and commands the respect of the older generation of bosses who were reined in under Provenzano.
Denaro may look like a slick manager on the make but he recently sealed a reputation for brutality by murdering a rival Trapani boss and strangling his three-months pregnant girlfriend. Forensics experts are still combing Provenzano's farmhouse for underground bunkers, tunnels or caches.
At the weekend they were reported to have found hundreds of euros stashed in the building. This week the search teams have ripped up all the farm's mattresses, cleared out its furniture and checked out a well. On Wednesday they found a power-field detector, probably bought on the Internet, which is believed to have been used to sweep the area for bugs and other surveillance devices.
They have already swabbed the farm for DNA evidence of anyone who was there before Provenzano's arrest.
Meanwhile, held in solitary confinement at a high-security jail at Terni, Umbria, Provenzano is awaiting a Red Cross visit to make sure he is being treated properly. The Italian Red Cross is sending in its local representative after receiving a worried e-mail from an American relative claiming Provenzano "could die in jail".
Provenzano suffers from a number of minor ailments linked to his age and has to wear sanitary towels in the wake of prostate surgery in a French clinic two years ago. He is being held under a tough prison regime applied to dangerous Mafiosi.
On Monday Provenzano received his first visit from his wife and two sons, who have also voiced concern about his health.
Prison authorities have said that the boss is being treated like other inmates, apart from restrictions due to his criminal status.
Last week, Provenzano was tight-lipped at his first questioning session after 43 years on the run. However, he was prepared to shake the hand of the Palermo police chief who finally nailed him. The boss is expected to appear May 2 on a video-link with
a Palermo trial into a 1980s turf war - "if he's feeling up to it," his laywer said.
Police are still sifting through the 'pizzini' (messages found at Provenzano's hide-out) and say they expect to make more arrests shortly - once the code used in many of them has been fully deciphered.
Many of the notes concern public works contracts across the island. Certain words in the Bible were associated with numbers
in Provenzano's most important missives, investigators say. Provenzano is believed to have had a close support network in Corleone, the town 40km (25 miles) south of Palermo made famous by the Godfather films. Investigators also suspect he enjoyed protection from local politicians and rogue police officers.
The boss took sole command of Cosa Nostra when Riina was arrested 13 years ago.
Provenzano has been convicted in absentia of a string of murders he committed as a young hitman and more recent assassinations he approved including the 1992 bomb slayings of Italy's top anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo
Borsellino.
