Active in politics since the 1980s with the Italian Liberal Party, Matacena served as a Forza Italia member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2001; he was elected through the constituency of Reggio Calabria, the city he became most associated with, and was known as "The King of the Strait".
[2][7] In the late morning on 22 September, he had begun to feel painful pangs in his chest, and died while he was in the ambulance, shortly before he arrived at the hospital emergency room.
[2][7][17] The Reggio Calabria Prosecutor's Office asked Italy's Ministry of Justice to investigate the death of Matacena, including that of his mother, which it considered to be suspicious.
[7] For his supporters, Matacena was a victim of judicial persecuation and miscarriage of justice, criticizing his mafia-related conviction after having been previously acquitted three times by two mixed courts.
[6][7][27] On 14 July 1995, Matacena was summoned by the Public Prosecutor of Catanzaro as part of an investigation that accused him of having contributed, supported, and facilitated the complex and multiple activities and criminal purposes of the 'Ndrangheta, a mafia association present in the Calabrian and national territory.
[4] Lasting over two years from 2003 to March 2006, the new trial saw the participation of 15 collaborators of justice and over 100 witnesses, including the hearing of the then Chamber of Deputies president Pierferdinando Casini and numerous parliamentarians.
In his testimony, Matacena told the judges that he was not involved in the facts, explaining that both he and his father were protected for several years by the Carabinieri as they were considered at risk of kidnapping.
[36][37][38] On 18 July 2012, the Assize Court of Appeal of Reggio Calabria sentenced Matacena to five years in prison for the crime of external complicity in a mafia association.
[40] In justifying their decision, the judges of the Supreme Court of Cassation argued that "evidently one cannot enter into an 'agreement' with a mafia structure without having full awareness of its existence and its modus operandi.
[54] As part of an investigation into pressure exerted on some magistrates of the District Prosecutor's Office of Reggio Calabria,[7][8] a precautionary detention order was issued on 9 November 2004 against Matacena and those of former deputy Paolo Romeo.
[61] On 5 November 2016, the Sixth Criminal Section of the Supreme Court of Cassation extinguished the conviction against Matacena related to the Mozart case due to the statute of limitations.
[67][68] On 8 May 2014, Scajola was arrested by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Division of Reggio Calabria on charges of having favoured Matacena's fugitive status and of wanting to plan his transfer to Lebanon.
[76] In motivating the sentence, the judges wrote that "an interest in helping Matacena to obtain political asylum in Lebanon emerged following a request from his wife Chiara Rizzo", and that Scajola's conduct "did not end in lawful aid to the fugitive" due to the existence of "undoubted and consolidated" relationships.
[7] Although an extradition agreement was signed between the two countries in September 2015, Matacena was still at large in Dubai as of 2016;[79] he would have been free by June 2023, when the statute of limitations would have extinguished his mafia-related conviction.
As of 2022, the 'Ndrangheta held a predominant position compared to other criminal organizations due to its wealth (calculated to be around €100 billion per year) deriving from cocaine trafficking, and thus was identified as a true "parallel state", a sort of "super-association", as defined in a reconstruction contained in an information from the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Reggio Calabria that ended up in the documents of the Breakfast trial also involving Matacena, where the 'Ndrangheta was ranked "on a par with other components of a gargantuan and deviant political-economic system".
[7] In August 2022, despite the "judgment of circumstantial gravity considered confirmed" and the opposition of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate,[5] the Reggio Calabria judge for preliminary investigations ordered the revocation of the arrest warrant and the decree of seizure of the assets.
[5] The motivation for the revocations was that the lawful origin had been ascertained of the company assets seized from Matacena and the subject of the fictitious registrations contested in the Breakfast investigation,[7][8] which involved the Matacena family,[81] and saw him accused of fictitious registration with the mafia aggravating circumstance, given the long time that has passed since the date of commission of the contested crimes,[17] and the exclusion in the precautionary phase of the aggravating mafia crime.