Stefano Bontade was also in touch with Silvio Berlusconi in the mid-1970s, when Berlusconi still was just a wealthy real estate developer and started his private television empire (Berlusconi became prime minister in 1994, 2001–2006, and again from 2008 to 2012). Bontade visited Berlusconi's villa in Arcore on the outskirts of Milan, according to Antonino Giuffrè, a mafioso who was a key aide to Mafia kingpin Bernardo Provenzano but turned state witness after his arrest in April 2002. Bontade's contact at Arcore was the late Vittorio Mangano, a convicted mafioso who used to be a stable manager there. "When Vittorio Mangano got the job in the Arcore villa, Stefano Bontade and some of his close aides used to meet Berlusconi using visits to Mangano as an excuse," Giuffrè said. Berlusconi's lawyer dismissed Giuffrè's testimony as "false" and an attempt to discredit the Prime Minister and his party.