Massimo Gentile, the man at the service of Messina Denaro who managed rivers of millions of Pnrr
Three more unsuspected people have been arrested for covering up the Cosa Nostra boss's fugitive status
Matteo Messina Denaro (Ansa)
New blow to the network that protected Matteo Messina Denaro while he was in hiding . The ROS carabinieri arrested the architect Massimo Gentile and the radiologist Cosimo Leone of the Mazzara del Vallo hospital for mafia association and Leonardo Gulotta for external complicity in mafia association .
The investigation was coordinated by the Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia, the deputy Paolo Guido and the prosecutors Gianluca De Leo and Piero Padova. Since the capture of the boss on January 16, 2023, 14 people accused of helping the wanted mafia boss have ended up in handcuffs. Four have already been convicted.
Three unsuspected people arrested today. Gentile, originally from Campobello di Mazara, the town where the boss spent his last years on the run, lives in Limbiate, Brianza. Relative of Salvatore Gentile, a life prison killer, he holds an administrative position in the Municipality of Limbiate and manages dozens of projects financed by the Pnrr .
According to those investigating, between 2007 and 2017 he gave up his identity to the mafia boss several times, thus allowing him to purchase a Fiat 500 and a BMW motorbike, to take out insurance on the two vehicles, to carry out banking operations, «in short - they write the magistrates - to live and move in its territory like any other citizen and with an apparently regular identification document".
Cosimo Leone, Gentile's brother-in-law, is accused by the prosecutors of having guaranteed the fugitive boss, in November 2020, to have a CT scan of his chest and abdomen safely done, and of having given him a confidential mobile phone during his hospitalization in Mazara hospital del Vallo, in the days in which the mafia boss was operated on for colon cancer and for having had the CT scan CD delivered to him after his resignation to show to the specialists who were treating him. Finally, Gulotta is accused of having made his telephone number available to Messina Denaro between 2007 and 2017 in order to receive communications from the dealer of the Fiat 500 purchased under a false name and from the insurance agencies where the contracts had been stipulated. insurance policies for the car and motorbike purchased with Gentile's identity.
Gentile managed rivers of millions of the Pnrr, worked in the technical office of the Municipality . It is the same professional who "tells" on Facebook about the works created thanks to European funds. Works related to renovations of schools, sports facilities, infrastructures.
New lines of investigation could be opened into the architect's activity: for years, in fact, magistrates have been denouncing the risk of mafia infiltration in the management of Pnrr funding .
(Unioneonline/L)
