EXCLUSIVE: Escaped mafia gangster Matteo Messina Denaro had a poster for THE PATE on the wall of his secret bunker, police reveal after he was finally caught

Escaped mafia gangster Matteo Messina Denaro had a poster of the classic film The Godfather on the wall of his secret bunker, police have revealed.

Denaro, 60, who was arrested earlier this week after eluding police for more than 30 years, is said to idolize the Oscar-winning blockbuster starring Marlon Brando as the boss of an Italian-American crime family based on Denaros Cosa Nostra film Mafia was featured.

The 1972 hit movie told how a Sicilian migrant, played by Brando, went to New York in the early 20th century and became one of the biggest mob bosses – just like Denaro when he rose to the top of the Sicilian Mafia.

Officials found the poster in the first of three bunkers Denaro used as a hideout in the town of Campobello di Mazara, 70 miles from the city of Palermo, where he was arrested while visiting a chemotherapy clinic.

Denaro (60), who was arrested earlier this week after evading the police for more than 30 years, is said to idolize the Oscar-winning blockbuster in which Marlon Brando was the boss of an Italian-American crime family (pictured) , based on Denaro’s Cosa Nostra mafia

In addition to the giant poster of the film directed by Francis Ford Coppola – which showed Brando in the classic brooding pose in a tuxedo and red buttonhole – the police also found a poster of The Joker – Batman’s villainous enemy.

This isn’t the first time real life has imitated Hollywood, as a few months ago police in Naples raided a local organized crime boss’s mansion, which was designed to look like Tony Montana’s in the blockbuster Scarface.

Inside were framed movie posters of Pacino, who is remembered for a memorable scene in which he machine guns his enemies while his mansion is under attack.

In the three bunkers Denaro used, Sicilian police also found Viagra, condoms, expensive designer suits and aftershave, as well as boxes of cash and receipts for expensive meals — as well as a diary and notes that hopefully explain how he escaped. so long

A source said: “The Godfather poster, which hung on a wall behind a desk in the first bunker, epitomizes the mob’s vanity about how Hollywood portrays organized crime. We know Denaro has Brando’s portrayal of a crime boss and how he grew from humble roots to a ruthless leader – very much like him.”

The Godfather is an adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by Mario Puzo, a novelist who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

The film was controversial from the start, and shortly after Paramount Pictures announced its production, the Italian-American Civil Rights League held a meeting in Madison Square Garden claiming that the film defamed Italian Americans.

The uproar only added more publicity to the film, which Paramount said would be a big hit after the success of Puzo’s novel.

While the words “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra” appear throughout the novel, which was released in 1969, the film’s producer – at the request of the Italian American Civil Rights League – agreed to remove all such references from the script.

Pictured: A Carabinieri officer photographs the home of Italy’s most wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro in Palermo on his island of Sicily after 30 years on the run. The Italian anti-mafia police caught the Sicilian godfather on January 16, 2023

Italian newspapers with news of the arrest of fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro on January 17, 2023 in Bari, Italy

Judge Maria Carmela Giannazzo speaks in the Caltanissetta court on the day the trial of Italy’s most wanted mob boss Matteo Messina Denaro begins in Caltanissetta, Italy January 19, 2023

People wave blank sheets of paper, wishing a new story would fill those sheets, during an anti-mafia protest in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano, where Italy’s most wanted mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, was born in Castelvetrano, Italy, on January . 19, 2023

Who is Matteo Messina Denaro? Click here to read more

Denaro wielded immense power and coordinated decades of terror that resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people, although he was never seen in public after his escape in the early 1990s.

The mafioso, who once boasted that he could “fill a cemetery with his victims,” ​​was forced into hiding after ordering a series of deadly attacks, including the murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino , as well as a series of car bombings in Florence, Milan and Rome in 1993 that killed 10 and injured 93.

That same year, Messina Denaro helped organize the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo, to keep his father from testifying against the mafia, prosecutors say. The boy was held captive for two years before he was brutally strangled and his body dissolved in a vat of acid.

Italy’s no. 1 fugitive was finally arrested by the police earlier this week.

The 60-year-old was taken from the “La Maddalena” hospital in Palermo by two police officers in uniform and stuffed into a black minivan.

Messina Denaro, nicknamed “Dibolik” and “U Siccu” (The Thin One), was sentenced to life in absentia for his role in the 1992 murders of two anti-mafia prosecutors, Falcone and Borsellino.

Messina Denaro was sentenced to life in absentia for his involvement in the murder of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. Pictured: The scene of Falcone’s murder in Palermo, Sicily, in 1992

The mafia boss, who hails from the small town of Castelvetrano in Sicily, also faces life in prison for his role in the bombings in Florence, Rome and Milan that killed ten people the following year.

In 1993, Messina Denaro helped organize the kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy, Giuseppe Di Matteo (pictured), to blackmail his father into not testifying against the Mafia. The boy was killed after two years of detention and his body was dissolved in acid

The gruesome murders were a hallmark of the dreaded criminal. They shocked the nation and led to a crackdown on Cosa Nostra.

A doctor at the clinic where the fugitive was arrested said on Wednesday that the convicted murderer was seriously ill with cancer.

“He is seriously ill. The disease has gained momentum in recent months,” Vittorio Gebbia, head of the oncology department at the Maddalena Clinic in Palermo, told Repubblica daily.

Police are still searching for clues about how Messina Denaro managed to evade capture for three decades.

According to leaked medical records released in Italian media, Denaro underwent colon cancer surgery in 2020 and 2022 under a false name.

He was arrested on Monday after detectives determined he was ill through wiretapped conversations with family members and scoured Italy for possible suspects of the right gender and age with the same type of cancer.

The police asked Gebbia if Messina Denaro needed urgent treatment.

“The police asked me if it mattered if the chemotherapy cycle he was supposed to receive was delayed by a few days and I agreed because such a small delay would have no impact,” said Gebbia.

Shortly after his arrest in Palermo, Messina Denaro was transferred to a maximum security prison in L’Aquila, in the Abruzzo region, where he was held in solitary confinement.

According to the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, he must be transferred for chemotherapy to the San Salvatore hospital in L’Aquila, where a special unit for this type of prisoner has been set up.