At 8.20am last Monday, Andrea Bonafede was queueing at the check-in of a private medical clinic in Palermo, Sicily. Suffering from colon cancer and thought to be 59, he had already undergone two operations and chemotherapy at the clinic, often bringing the staff presents of olive oil and exchanging phone numbers, and text messages, with his fellow patients. He was known to dress in flashy clothes: that morning he was wearing a sheepskin coat, a white hat, Ray-Ban shades and an expensive Franck Muller watch.
Waiting for his Covid test, he went outside and walked towards the Fiat Brava, and the driver, that had brought him there. The undercover officers watching him worried that he had realised he was under surveillance and that he might be about to bolt. A colonel from the Carabinieri, Italy’s militarised police, decided to move in: “Are you Matteo Messina Denaro?”
