Ricotta, Grenades, Hippos: The Strange Things Fugitive Gangsters and Dictators Hide in Their Lairs

Updated on September 24, 2024 at 6:40 PM*

Earlier this month the Venice Film Festival premiered Sicilian lettersa new film from directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza that explores the age-old mystery of how Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro managed to evade capture for thirty years.

The film centers on a fictional Denaro-inspired mafia boss named Matteo and aims to provide insight into the complex socio-cultural structure of Italy that allowed such a prominent criminal to remain unnoticed for so long.

In January 2023, when Denaro was finally tracked down after 30 years on the run, police revealed some of the possessions found in the Palermo apartment where he had been hiding under a false name. The stash included expensive watches, perfumes, designer clothes and sex pills.

And just a few days later, as the Italian daily The stamp Police reportedly found a second hideout near Denaro’s hometown of Messina in the Sicilian province of Trapani, a secret safe behind a closet where jewelry, gold and other valuables were found.

Such revelations are inevitable in the aftermath of the capture of a Most Wanted figure like the 60-year-old “boss of bosses.” Both offer a glimpse into the life of a fugitive and possible clues about his personality.

The items in Denaro’s Messina hideout confirmed his reputation for lavish living and expensive taste. It was a contrast to his own predecessor as Cosa Nostra’s “capo dei capi,” the restrained Bernardo Provenzano, who had holed up in a small cabin in the Italian countryside when he was captured in 2006 after 43 years in hiding.

Below is a look at some of history’s most notorious hunted criminals and warlords, and what was discovered in the bunkers and hideouts where they would meet their fate:

Bernardo Provenzano – Ricotta on a plate

At the time of his arrest, Italian gangster Bernardo Provenzano was living in a tiny old farmhouse in the countryside just outside his hometown of Corleone. Inside the hideout, police found a typewriter, a poster of a statue of the Virgin Mary, some ricotta and provola cheese on a plastic plate, the keys to an old Fiat Panda parked outside, and a black cat.

The typewriter was used mainly to write small “pizzini” notes to lieutenants, which were delivered by couriers. Provenzano never used a telephone or computer to keep his whereabouts secret.

Pablo Escobar – collection of cars and hippos

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar made the most of his incalculable wealth, which he kept in plain sight and protected by his own private army. Escobar owned a handful of luxury properties, including the 5,500-acre Hacienda Nápoles estate in Puerto Triunfo, Colombia.

When he was finally tracked down and shot dead by Colombian security forces in 1993, authorities gained a clear picture of the true extent of his assets.

The main complex included two swimming pools, a private airport and a racetrack for Escobar’s collection of luxury cars. He also built a zoo to house animals including elephants, ostriches and, most famously, four hippos. The invasive animals escaped after his arrest and have since grown to a herd of about 140, damaging the local ecosystem and occasionally attacking people.

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán – Tunnels, trash and DVDs

Apparently inspired by Escobar, Mexican drug lord Guzmán also had his own zoo, big enough to travel around in a “little train” and view his collection of lions, tigers and other exotic animals, a former gang member testified.

But the Sinaloa home where Guzmán was staying before his most recent arrest in 2016 was a dumping ground — filled with trash, empty soda cans and takeout food, and a tunnel hidden in a walk-in closet.

Photos from the scene also show rented DVD copies of the TV series Queen of the Southabout a young Mexican woman who becomes a drug lord, played by actor Kate del Castillo. In a bizarre twist, Guzmán met del Castillo in the mountains of Durango, Mexico, alongside American actor Sean Penn, while the crime boss was on the run after his second arrest and prison break.

Another Guzmán safe house, which was raided in 2014, also had a tunnel hidden under a bathtub, allowing Guzmán to quickly escape during the robbery. The Mexican state lottery raffled the property in 2021.

​Whitey Bulger — Retirement Cards, Cash, and Grenades​

After 16 years on the run, Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger was arrested in 2011. He was holed up in a modest apartment in Santa Monica, California, with his girlfriend Catherine Greig.

Police found stacks of cash totaling $822,000 hidden in the walls, which were decorated with framed photos of cats, a world map and a poster of the American flag with the caption “God Bless America.”

Bulger had amassed an extensive collection of nonfiction about the military and had a shelf full of books on organized crime, including several about himself and the Irish mob in South Boston.

Police also released photos of a closet in the apartment filled with bottles of hand soap and cleaning supplies, neatly lined up. Along with a cache of weapons — including handguns, assault rifles and a grenade — police also found two American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) ID cards, made out under the false identities of Bulger and Greig.

Toto Riina — Crystal Chandeliers

Sicilian Mafia boss Toto Riina, who was the original mentor of Matteo Messina Denaro and nicknamed “’u Curtu” (“The Short”) or “The Beast”, spent years as a fugitive in Sicily. When he was finally arrested in 1993, he had already been living with his family in a villa in a residential area of ​​Palermo for years.

The house had six bathrooms, a swimming pool, palm trees in the garden, crystal chandeliers and a safe room. But nothing was found there, because the police waited more than two weeks to search the house.

Meanwhile, the villa had been ransacked by Riina’s men, who destroyed furniture and emptied the house, including the archives of Cosa Nostra’s illegal businesses and allies that had been stored in the safe room.

Muammar Gaddafi – A Series of Bizarre Artifacts

A 2011 raid by Libyan rebels on Tripoli, home of deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi, turned up a variety of bizarre items, including a scrapbook of photos of former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a model of a human skeleton, a jet ski and a bench topped with a gold-coloured wood carving of a mermaid resembling Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha.

The estate, one of many he owned worldwide, also included a pond, a swimming pool (with bath toys and a bar) and a hot tub, as well as a hedge that hid stairs leading to a bunker protected by steel doors.

Inside, the rebels found an operating room and an X-ray machine, as well as copies of Playboy And Fashion and an empty crate of Corona beer.

Osama bin Laden – Disney and Chomsky

When Osama bin Laden was killed by the US military in 2011, he had been living in a large house on a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, for at least five years.

The three-story house was simply furnished for bin Laden and his family, with several bedrooms and kitchens, a room that served as a classroom for his children, and a balcony with a six-foot-high privacy wall.

There was no internet or phone service, but the Navy SEALs found a number of video games and Disney films, about 100 flash drives where he stored his correspondence, documentaries about himself, and a library ranging from conspiracy books to left-wing author Noam Chomsky’s Necessary Illusions: Mind Control in Democratic Societies.

According to Reuters, a “fairly extensive” pornographic collection was also found, but the CIA has consistently refused to release the files, even after multiple requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

Concrete walls with barbed wire encircled the perimeter, with two security gates. Inside the walls, authorities found a well-tended vegetable garden and rabbits, chickens and a cow.

The Pakistani government demolished the complex in February 2012.

Adolf Hitler — News Reports and Destroyed Paintings

The most infamous historical bunker, that of Adolf Hitler Leaders bunker in Berlin, was almost completely destroyed after the war by the East German authorities because there were fears that it would become a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis.

Photographs taken after Soviet troops seized control of the bunker in 1945 show the space looted and burned, including copies of news reports and a vandalized painting — reportedly a 16th-century work stolen from Milan. The remains of the bunker are now buried under a parking lot.

*Originally published on January 19, 2023, this article was updated on September 24, 2024 to include news about the film “Sicilian Letters.”