In September 2014 Antonino Messicati Vitale, a Sicilian Mafia boss whose name is whispered with respect and more than a little fear in parts of Palermo, hatched a plan to flee Italy using a high-tech silicon mask to conceal his identity. But investigators were watching closely and on October 8 2014 they raided his home and arrested him. He is now awaiting trial.
“We aren’t certain about which country Antonino was going to fly to,” the head of the investigative section of the Carabinieri police in Palermo told reporters. “But it is very likely he was going to South Africa again.”
Messicati Vitale had visited family – in both the Mafia usage of the word and the more traditional blood-relations type – in South Africa before. He had also already helped to extend the family business – again, in both senses of that word – in this country.
This week a new investigation spanning Italy, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and countries far beyond can reveal parts of that Mafia business, and how Italian organised crime continues to build its footprint in Southern Africa, using South Africa as its base.
For the Mafia, South Africa has long proved to be a place where sanctuary can be found, where friends and family can easily shield a man from unwanted attention and provide a comfortable life. In the past 30 years, it has also become one of the most important foreign economies for the Cosa Nostra. The organisation deftly managed this country’s transition to democracy and, like other, more legitimate businesses, used it as a base from which to expand northwards.
Today Mafia money reaches from rich diamond concessions on South Africa’s West Coast to the bloody Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe; from a bottled water plant in Franschhoek to an ostrich farm in Namibia. Much of that is the legacy of one man: Vito Roberto Palazzolo, aka Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, for years the most valued banker of the Cosa Nostra and a resident of South Africa, with connections reaching deep into local business and politics.
- See more: mg.co.za/article/2015-04-16-married-to-the-mob-the-diamond-boer-and-the-honeytrap