New blow to the
network of supporters who covered the absence of Matteo Messina Denaro
.
The ROS carabinieri arrested Antonino Luppino and Vincenzo Luppino, sons of the Campobello di Mazara entrepreneur Giovanni Luppino, the man who was the mafia boss's driver and who ended up in handcuffs with him on January 16th a year ago.
They are accused of aiding and abetting and aggravated failure to comply with the sentence.
The investigation was coordinated by the Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, the deputy Paolo Guido and the prosecutors Gianluca De Leo and Piero Padova.
According to the prosecution, the Luppinos provided Messina Denaro with "precious help" in moving around the area where the boss has lived in recent times.
The two brothers, according to the accusations, from 2018 to 2022, lived a few meters from the godfather's last hideout in Campobello di Mazara, sharing crucial information with their father for managing the mafia boss's fugitive status.
Antonino Luppino had been given the number of one of the cell phones used by the boss, Vincenzo Luppino would have gone to the La Maddalena clinic, where the wanted man was being treated for cancer, when he was operated on, to take care of his needs.
And again Antonino Luppino, together with his father, would have escorted Messina Denaro, after his resignation from the nursing home, on 11 May, to Campobello and together with his brother he would have taken care of the repairs of the car, a Giulietta, with which the mafia boss it moved.
The three Luppinos would then follow the renovation work on the fugitive's hideout and the move of the boss's furniture to the last hideout.
Vincenzo would have kept the old kitchen that Messina Denaro had decided not to bring to the house where he had moved.
Finally, Vincenzo lent his father his van to escort the fugitive as he drove through Castelvetrano to pass in front of his family's homes.
Messina Denaro at the family home shortly before the arrest
On December 29, 2022, a few days before his arrest, Matteo Messina Denaro drove past the house of his ex-partner, mother of his daughter, and his sisters Bice and Giovanna, in Castelevetrano.
He followed him and escorted the van of Vincenzo Luppino, arrested today.
Driving him was his father Giovanni, an entrepreneur who ended up in handcuffs on the day of his godfather's capture and his driver.
The wanted boss therefore passed by his family's house to revisit the places dear to him and in the hope, investigators suspect, of being able to see his family members even from afar.
The cameras of the town immortalized the van following the fugitive's Giulietta as it passed at 5.12pm under the house of Franca Alagna, the ex-partner, at 5.15pm under the house of her sister Giovanna and at 5.17pm under that of the other sister Bice.
The escort, writes the investigating judge, ensured a sort of relay to the fugitive, "who had to pass through places notoriously subject to exceptional checks by the police".
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