Cash money, hidden treasure, role in Cosa Nostra: Who will the assets of the mafia boss go to and who are the "descendants"

The economic inheritance can go to the family, which is made up of blood and the mafia. Half or more of Messina Denaro's relatives are in prison or under investigation. But new balances may arise in the Cosa Nostra organization.

Nobody knows the heirs of Matteo Messina Denaro in Cosa Nostra. Of course they do, because his legacy as a mob boss remains intact – cultivated in thirty years in hiding and eight months of "hard prison" spent keeping his mouth shut.

The wealth that allowed him to live until last January spending thousands of euros every month. Where will all that money that was coming to the boss of Castelvetrano go now?

They will probably continue to trickle down, at least in part, to his family, which is both blood and mafia together, given that half or more of Matteo's relatives are in prison or under investigation. But there are chances that other mobsters want to get involved in managing that hidden treasure. When and how will this happen and in whose name will the investigations tell.

With the death of the last godfather of massacres, who participated in the transition from the mafia of bombs and attacks on the state to the new one of coexistence and cooperation with the institutions, to put it in two names: from da Totò Riina to Bernardo Provenzano, the Corleone bosses, to whom Messina Denaro was a loyal ally and interpreting continuity. The survivor of the old Cosa Nostra, which had transformed into the new mafia, leaves the scene.

It will be necessary to understand how the new situation will affect the mafia balance in the area, to continue the administration of affairs that remains the main business of Cosa Nostra: making money and accumulating wealth.

The order based even on the living existence of the last heir of the Corleone mafia can collapse, or remain alive on the basis of new agreements and new balances. It is the difference between possible new conflicts - which in the land of the mafia manifest themselves in attacks and murders - and a bloodless reconciliation.

As long as Matteo Messina Denaro was there, there was little doubt about the path followed by Cosa Nostra, now it is no longer so certain./ Corriere della Sera