Authorities find second hideout of Italian mafia boss

Jan. 19 (UPI) -- Authorities said Thursday they have found a second hideout of recently detained Italian mob boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

Police found an alleged secret bunker, believed to be a gateway for Denaro, inside his home in the town of Campobello di Mazara where the entrance was concealed inside a closet full of clothes.

Law enforcement said they found expensive gems, diamonds and emeralds at the location, as well as empty paper boxes that may have held important documents.

Investigators were on the lookout for documents including a "secret archive" belonging to mob boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina, who died in 2017. Mafia informers allege that Denaro may have stolen the documents that detail four decades worth of mafia killings.

Authorites arrested Denaro on Monday during a chemotherapy treatment at a private clinic in Sicily and raided his apartment, leading to the discovery of the first hideout as well as information that led them to the second.

Denaro, believed to be the former leader of the notorious Costa Nostra crime family, was being held at a prison in L'Aquila, where officials said they will continue to give the mob boss cancer treatments.

Italian prosecutors said they hope Denaro's arrest will lead to them solving some of the biggest crimes the mafia is blamed for, including the deaths of two anti-mob judges and the death of a 12-year-old son of a former mafia member who became a state witness.

Denaro on Thursday declined to participate in a hearing connected to the 1992 deaths of Italian judges Paolo Falcone and Giovanni Borsellino.

In 2002, an Italian court convicted Denaro in absentia for numerous deaths. The Cosa Nostra mafia had been blamed for racketeering, illegal waste dumping, money-laundering and drug-trafficking under Denaro's alleged leadership.