A former boss of a French-Italian mafia family has died after being shot after which run over on a motorway.
Jean-Pierre Maldera, 71, was driving his BMW near the southeastern city of Grenoble when a automobile containing three or 4 gunmen got here up alongside him, local authorities say.
One opened fire using an assault rifle believed to be a Kalashnikov, hitting Maldera within the elbow.
Maldera ‘then stopped his vehicle on the road and got out’, said Francois Touret de Courcy, Grenoble’s deputy public prosecutor, in a press release.
The 71-year-old began to flee on foot but his attackers ‘made a U-turn, drove the incorrect way along the motorway and hit him violently’, Mr de Courcy added.
‘The body was thrown and located in the other lane of the motorway.
‘The gunshot wound was not fatal, and the reason behind death was more prone to be on account of the impact with the vehicle or the autumn onto the carriageway.’
A pistol was found near Maldera’s body, and a stolen Renault Megane believed to have been utilized by the attackers was found burned out in a Grenoble car parking zone later that day.
Maldera and his younger brother Robert were described in French media because the ‘Godfathers of Grenoble’ within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, playing the role of ‘brains and brawn’ respectively.
Robert, who was reportedly nicknamed the ‘madman’, disappeared ten years ago after leaving to attend a gathering in mysterious circumstances.
Three people were charged with killing him in 2017 but his body was never found.
Organise crime in the town, which is near the Italian border, was said to have been dominated by gangsters with blood ties to the northern Italian mafia.
The Malderas were ‘the last family in France to be more feared’ thansource near the investigation told French broadcaster France Bleu.
The brothers were convicted of a spread of offences including racketeering and ‘aggravated pimping’ in 2004, but were released the next yr on account of an administrative error.
Jean-Pierre had been out and in of prison for the reason that Nineteen Seventies but selected to live a quieter life following his final release.
He shouldn’t be known to have had any brushes with police within the last twenty years.
Detectives investigating his killing have urged any witnesses to return forward.
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