Former Mafia boss Rocco Zito has been shot dead at his home in Toronto, Canada.
Rocco Zito, 87, had been a senior member of the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, or Calabrian mafia, based in southern Italy, according to Canadian media.
The man was once one of Toronto’s most powerful mafia leaders, the Toronto Sun reported.
Rocco Zito’s son-in-law, Domenico Scopelliti, has been charged with murder after turning himself in to police.
Police said officers arrived at Rocco Zito’s home on January 29 to find a man with gunshot wounds. Attempts were made to resuscitate him but he died of his injuries.
Officials did not immediately release the victim’s name.
Domenico Scopelliti, 51, was named as a suspect and he surrendered to authorities on January 30, a police statement said.
He later appeared in court where he was charged with first-degree murder.
Rocco Zito was born in Fiumara, Calabria, Italy, in 1928 and moved to Canada in the mid-1950s.
He was reported to have had ties with branches of the ‘Ndrangheta in New York, Montreal and Italy.
Italian police say the ‘Ndrangheta operates the biggest cocaine smuggling network in Europe.
Forty suspects were arrested in northern Italy as the authorities targeted mafia cells.
Meanwhile anti-mafia police have released unprecedented footage of an initiation ritual filmed as part of an inquiry into the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate.
Three groups were under investigation, based north of Milan, in the provinces of Como and Lecco in Lombardy region.
Most of the arrests were in northern Italy, but some of the men were detained in Sicily.
The ‘Ndrangheta is based in Calabria, in the far south “toe-end” of Italy.
Italian media said the investigation had involved phone intercepts as well as secret filming and the three groups at the ceremony came from small villages in Como and Lecco.
During the meeting, those present organized their hierarchy and allotted roles to each other. One of those sworn in was 17 years of age, officials said.
Milan anti-mafia prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, who led the investigation, said the video showed how “the force of tradition” enabled the ‘Ndrangheta to survive.
The ‘Ndrangheta are known to have distinctive initiation rites and an elite membership known as “Santa”.
Those arrested by a special police unit were being held on suspicion of belonging to the mafia and extortion, as well as carrying unlicensed guns.
Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano will testify at a high-profile anti-Mafia trial in Rome.
Prosecutors are investigating possible collusion between ministers, police chiefs and the Mafia to end a period of violence in the early 1990s.
Giorgio Napolitano, 89, denies any knowledge of the negotiations.
Opposition politicians have called for Giorgio Napolitano’s evidence not to be held behind closed doors when the trial moves from Palermo to the capital on October 28.
There is no suggestion that he was involved in any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors are investigating a dramatic period of Mafia violence in the 1990s – marked by car bombings and assassinations.
They accuse the state of making an illegal deal with the Mafia to bring the violence to an end.
Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano will testify at a high-profile anti-Mafia trial in Rome
In October 2013, Giorgio Napolitano wrote a letter to the court saying he had “no useful knowledge” to give the trial, but would have been happy to give evidence if he had.
Prosecutors allege that government officials sought to make an agreement with the Mafia after bombings in 1993, reportedly promising less harsh jail conditions in exchange for calling off the bombing campaign.
Two leading anti-mafia prosecutors died in devastating explosions in Sicily.
A former interior minister, Nicola Mancino, is on trial for allegedly negotiating with the Mafia after the attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan.
Nicola Mancino denies the charges.
The court ruled last year that President Giorgio Napolitano could not be asked about conversations he had with Nicola Mancino in 2011 and 2012. Evidence from an intercepted phone-call was destroyed after an application from Giorgio Napolitano.
The former interior minister is on trial along with several other people including two jailed Mafia bosses, Toto Riina and Benardo Provenzano.
A final verdict in the case is not expected for at least two more years.
Silvio Berlusconi’s close associate Marcello Dell’Utri has been arrested in Lebanon.
Marcello Dell’Utri is a life-long friend of Silvio Berlusconi and was once one of his closest advisors.
Declared a fugitive, Marcello Dell’Utri was arrested in Beirut just days before a definitive verdict in his long-running trial.
A lower court earlier decided he was guilty of having liaised between a Sicilian Mafia boss and Silvio Berlusconi.
Marcello Dell’Utri was found guilty of having liaised between a Sicilian Mafia boss and Silvio Berlusconi
If Italy’s highest court, hearing his final appeal, upholds that conviction, Marcello Dell’Utri could face seven years in jail.
The offence is alleged to have happened before Silvio Berlusconi entered politics.
Both men deny having had any dealings with the Mafia and Silvio Berlusconi has not been tried in connection with the affair.
Marcello Dell’Utri was declared a fugitive on Friday, after the authorities could find no trace of him. He later issued a statement saying he was abroad for medical treatment, but did not say where.
Senior Italian officials say Marcello Dell’Utri is in police custody and that Italy will seek his extradition.
Marcello Dell’Utri was an executive in Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire and then a senator in his conservative movement.
James “Whitey” Bulger, one of America’s most notorious mob bosses, has been convicted of nearly a dozen murders, racketeering and conspiracy.
James Bulger, 83, terrorized an Irish-Catholic neighborhood of Boston in the 1970s and ’80s as leader of the Winter Hill Gang.
He betrayed no emotion upon hearing the verdict after a two-month trial.
Whitey Bulger went on the run in 1994 and was finally captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011.
He was said to have been an inspiration for the gangster played by Jack Nicholson in Oscar-winning 2006 film The Departed.
The trial in Boston heard gruesome evidence that James Bulger had participated in 19 murders, but he was found guilty on Monday of a role in only 11 of them.
Convicted of 31 of the 32 total criminal counts against him, James Bulger faces a life prison sentence. But analysts have pointed out that even a short sentence would likely see the stooped, grey-haired ex-gangster die in prison.
Whitey Bulger refused to testify at the trial, calling the proceedings “a sham” because he said he had been promised immunity by a now-deceased prosecutor in return for protection from other mobsters.
James “Whitey” Bulger has been convicted of nearly a dozen murders, racketeering and conspiracy
During the trial, the federal jury of 12 heard testimony from 72 witnesses and saw 840 exhibits
Prosecutors said James Bulger had been a longtime FBI informant protected by corrupt agents, who turned a blind eye to the Winter Hill gang’s activities in return for information on the Italian Mafia.
But his lawyers denied he was an informant, arguing that he paid the FBI for information about investigations.
The defense did not contest James Bulger ran a criminal enterprise, but strongly denied he killed women and that he was “rat” – an informant against others in the criminal underworld.
James Bulger’s victims included anyone he saw as a threat, prosecutors said, including innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“This is not some Robin Hood story about a guy who kept angel dust and heroin out of Southie,” prosecutor Fred Wyshak told the jury in closing arguments, referring to the South Boston neighborhood that was his gang’s turf.
James Bulger’s former associates testified against him, saying he threatened anyone who could expose his crime syndicate, and threatened others with pistols and machine guns to force them to hand over cash.
Among other things, he was accused of strangling two women with his bare hands, shooting two chained men in the head after interrogating them for hours, and opening fire on two men as they left a South Boston restaurant.
Defense lawyers sought to portray the key witnesses, all convicted mob members, as pathological liars who were attempting to pin their own crimes on Bulger.
Another witness, real estate developer Richard Buccheri, said the mob boss threatened to kill him and his family if he did not pay $200,000, sticking a shotgun in Buccheri’s mouth.
“Today is a day many in this city thought would never come,” Massachusetts US Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in a press conference after the verdict, which she said marked the end of an “ugly” era in Boston’s history.
“Despite the corruption, we stand here today because of the dogged work of honest and dedicated members of law enforcement.”
James “Whitey” Bulger was featured on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for 16 years until he was found living in California with his girlfriend Catherine Greig.
She was sentenced in 2012 to eight years in prison for helping James Bulger evade the law.
He fled Boston in 1994 after a retired FBI agent tipped him off that he was about to be indicted.
His origins in a Boston housing project, his career in the criminal underworld, and his years on the run from the law captivated the city, especially as his younger brother William rose to become president of the state Senate.
James Bulger’s disappearance was a major embarrassment for the FBI, especially after it was alleged in court that he and his gang paid off several FBI agents and state and Boston police officers, offering cash and cases of fine wine in exchange for information on search warrants and wiretaps.
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