Quote:Versace murdered 'because of debts to Mafia'

The fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered because of debts to the Mafia – who then tried to steal his ashes to blackmail his family, according to a supergrass.

By Nick Pisa in Rome 5:01PM GMT 05 Dec 2010
The 50-year-old Versace was gunned down on the steps of his Miami apartment in 1997 by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.

According to a new book by Giuseppe Di Bella, a former member of the Calabrian Mafia known as the N'drangheta, Versace was allegedly killed "over debts" he had with the Godfathers.

In the book Metastasi, Di Bella alleges that Versace was being used by Godfather Paolo De Stefano to launder money.

Di Bella told investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi:"There were rivers of money from drugs, extortion, protection rackets, loan sharking, mountains of money and it had to be made clean.

"Bars, restaurants, property and luxury goods were used but also clean businesses like that of Versace."

Di Bella also describes how the N'drangheta plotted to steal Versace's ashes from a cemetery near his family home on Lake Como on New Year's Eve 1997 but it was never carried out.

Giancarlo Capaldo, of the Rome-based anti Mafia department, said: "We have opened a file into what Di Bella says – he is an informer and his information in the past has always proved correct."

In a statement the Versace family denounced the claims as "false and shameful".

"We reserve the right to protect the memory and reputation of Gianni Versace in civil and criminal courts," the statement added.