Was Gianni Versace murdered by the mob?
Strolling in the Miami sunshine with the latest fashion magazines tucked under his arm, Gianni Versace appeared unusually relaxed.
Having learned his ear cancer was in remission and that a recent Aids test was negative, the notoriously hot-tempered gay Italian designer was happier than he had been for years.
But Versace, then 50, was never to enjoy another day. On his return home, as he fiddled with the lock on the front gates of his palatial, art deco mansion, a stranger in a white shirt and grey shorts approached — and gunned him down with two close-range shots to the head and neck.
New reports claim the mafia was responsible for Gianni Versace's murder. The fashion guru is pictured with Carla Bruni and Naomi Campbell
The killer then walked away calmly and climbed into a waiting car.
That murder, in July 1997, made headlines around the world. Was Versace the victim of a professional hit — or a crazed madman? And what on earth was the motive?
Certainly, the belief of those who witnessed the awful events outside Versace’s home was that he had been slain by a hitman, such was the clinical nature of the killing.
Martin Weinstein, who was at the scene, said: ‘I saw him lying in a pool of blood, with his face blown off. It was execution style.’
Bizarrely, a dead turtle dove was found beside Versace’s blood-spattered body, which some speculated could be a professional killer’s calling card.
But very quickly, the police, and Versace’s family, dismissed these suspicions, with investigators pinning the blame on Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old ‘high-class’ gay prostitute, who was allegedly seen running from the scene.
After an international manhunt he was was found to have committed suicide in the upstairs bedroom of the Miami houseboat where he had been hiding out. The case, as far as the police and the Versace family were concerned, was closed.
As for the presence of the dead dove, it was written off as a freak coincidence: detectives claimed the bird was simply hit by a bullet fragment as it flew overhead at the exact moment Cunanan opened fire.
But now, 13 years later, the colourful life and death of Gianni Versace has taken a remarkable new twist amid sensational allegations that the designer to the stars was the victim of a mafia contract killing.
An image take from Italian television shows Mr Versace arriving at a Miami hospital on a stretcher soon after he was shot
An Italian newspaper in a bag and a slipper are marked on the front steps of the Miami mansion where the murder took place
Two high-ranking mob hit men, Giuseppe Di Bella and Filippo Barecca, have independently claimed that Cunanan was framed for the murder — and that Versace was killed by the mafia. They also confirmed that the dead turtle dove beside Versace’s body was indeed a calling card from his enemies.
The disclosures, which have infuriated Versace’s surviving brother and sister, Santo and Donatella — who now run the fashion empire — are contained in a book about the mafia by Gianluigi Nuzzi , a respected Italian investigative journalist.
He has interviewed the two pentiti — mafia informers — from Calabria in the south of Italy, who have provided startling allegations about Versace’s mob connections.
So what is the truth? Could the designer who became a close friend of Princess Diana have been involved in the criminal underworld?
Or are the rumours just tarnishing a fashion legend’s legacy?
Certainly, Calabria is where the Versace empire began. Growing up in the impoverished region in the toe of Italy, the young Gianni first developed a love of dress-making while watching his seamstress mother at work.
And it was here, too, as Nuzzi’s book reveals, that the Versace family first came in contact with the N’drangheta — a division of Italy’s criminal underworld, which is more powerful and more ruthless than the Cosa Nostra and the Camorra, Italy’s other main crime groups.
The N’drangheta (the name means ‘courage’) today controls much of the cocaine entering Europe, acting in concert with South American drug cartels and using submarines to ship narcotics.
The enterprise is believed to have an annual turnover of £50billion.
Highly organised, with moneylaundering schemes operating through legitimate companies, the N’drangheta mobsters started by collecting pizzo — protection money — from virtually every business in Calabria, including the dress-making business run by Versace’s mother.
A fan lays flowers on the steps of Mr Versace's mansion where the designer was gunned down on 15 July, 1997
Mr Versace was on his way back to his Art Deco Miami Palazzo after having visited a cafe and bought a newspaper when he was killed
But according to Giuseppe Di Bella and Filippo Barecca, the former mobsters who agreed to testify against the N’drangheta in a plea bargain struck in 2001, mafia bosses soon spotted an even greater opportunity.
Instead of simply continuing to bleed the expanding Versace empire dry of protection money, they had much greater plans as the designer’s fame and riches grew...to use his business to launder their ‘dirty’ drug money.
The supergrasses claim that the man appointed to mastermind this operation was Franco Coco Trovato, a mobster who ran his operations from a pizzeria called Wall Street in Lecco near Milan.
In the mid to late 1980s — as Versace’s business expanded — Trovato, fond of designer suits and Ferraris, moved from Calabria to Milan, where Versace was then working and living.
Trovato posed as a successful restaurateur and was a regular fixture at parties attended by Versace and the Milan fashion crowd. But, in reality, he was supplying drugs and was allegedly targeting the designer’s increasingly successful business as a perfect conduit to launder money.
The scheme, according to Di Bella and Barecca, involved Trovato putting money into Versace’s myriad businesses, which would then be ‘cleaned’ — by paying tax — with a cut going to the design house and the remainder being paid back to the mob.
Two supergrasses claim that the mafia, and not high class gay prostitute Andrew Cunanan, pictured, were responsible for Mr Versace's murder
Trovato was not a man to be messed with. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was involved in a brutal war with rivals from the Camorra which left 200 people dead. And he was infamous for torturing those who betrayed him.
Today, he is serving life for murder.
But during the early years of his ‘friendship’ with Versace, Trovato allegedly delighted in showing off ties that had been made personally for him by the designer. Di Bella says: ‘Franco was obsessed with fashion and would call us lads in and show us his handmade ties that had been signed on the back and on the front by Versace.
He said they were friends and that they did business together. They would go on business trips to Majorca and Brazil. I can say with confidence that from 1983-84 Versace worked with Trovato laundering money.
‘I’m not saying that Versace knew where the money came from — in fact maybe he didn’t even know that his friend Trovato was a boss and was one of us in the N’drangheta. But look at it this way: one plus one, for me, makes two.’
Di Bella claims the money was laundered by Versace in the Italian tax enclave of Campione in Switzerland. And it was the fall out from this ‘arrangement’ that allegedly led, according to a number of sources, to Versace’s ‘execution’.
In a macabre twist, one of the informants claims he was offered £300,000 to steal Versace’s ashes from the cemetery at Moltrasio on Lake Como. ‘The ashes plan was supposed to be a message to the family — “look what we have done, give us back the money we gave to Versace”,’ says Di Bella. ‘But it never went ahead.’
The question, of course, is whether the two informers can be believed.
But while it may be tempting to dismiss their testimony as far fetched, the two men are regarded as highly reliable by prosecutors and anti-Mafia investigators, who have relied on information provided by them to secure mob convictions for a series of murder cases, including that of a judge and the former head of the Italian State Railways.
Trovato was not a man to be messed with and he was infamous for torturing those who betrayed him. Today, he is serving life for murder.
Indeed, as revenge for breaking the code of omerta — or silence — one of the informers’ brothers was gunned down as he was having his hair cut at the barber's.
Both are now living at secret locations with contracts on their lives.
Gianluigi Nuzzi — the author who tracked the two men down — told the Mail: ‘Barreca and Di Bella are two of the most important witnesses in history. Their information has led to the arrest and conviction of dozens of members of the N’drangheta.
The judiciary as well as the top anti-Mafia investigators in Italy say their credibility is not open to discussion.’
Unsurprisingly, however, the Versace family is incensed by the claims. ‘Gianni never had anything to do with the N’drangheta,’ insists Santo. ‘The only crime my brother was guilty of was spending his money freely which I often remonstrated with him about.’
He is now threatening legal action against the author. This is a familiar turn of events to Frank Monte, a 65-year-old private detective who once worked for Versace and is now living quietly in Australia.
Once one of the best-known private detectives in the U.S., with offices in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Miami, Monte was hired by Versace in the mid-1990s to spy on employees in his American headquarters, because he feared someone was stealing from the company.
Despite his improved health thanks to beating cancer, Versace was growing increasingly paranoid. At the same time, his seedy lifestyle of constant wild parties with rent boys, was taking a heavy mental toll.
But Monte believes Versace’s suspicions were correct, and that money was being embezzled and tax not paid.
This allegedly infuriated the mafia, who were insistent that the business should be seen to be ‘clean and legitimate’ with all taxes paid to avoid the possibility of their laundering activity being uncovered.
Mr Versace's family, including sister, Donatella, have dismissed his links to the mafia. But Italy's anti-mafia police are planning an investigation into the new claims
Associates of Versace told Monte that the designer, who by the time of his death had homes all over the world and was worth around £840million, was contemplating going public about the Mafia pressure on him — a guarantee of a death warrant from the mob.
Monte says the mafia hired a hit man to carry out the shooting with the help of local nightclub owners and drug dealers. He believes Andrew Cunanan — the man whom police believe carried out the murder was a ‘patsy’, or fall guy.’
But having dared to challenge the official version of events in a book he wrote about the case, Monte paid a heavy price. A legal onslaught was led by Donatella Versace, Gianni’s sister, who sued and left him broken and bankrupt.
Gianni didn’t even know how to write a cheque so how was he supposed to have laundered dirty money?’
With a team of highly-paid lawyers, Donatella pursued Monte to Australia, where she spent £2million on winning an action banning publication of the book.
Now, as Nuzzi’s fresh revelations cause shockwaves, Monte is planning to go back to court to appeal the original ban on his book.
He also questions evidence she gave before: ‘Donatella was in the witness box saying she never did drugs ever. Yet 18 months later she was in a rehab unit and saying she had been a cocaine addict for 18 years!’
Now, as is traditional for a family from southern Italy, the Versace clan is wheeling out its most loyal supporters to shoot down the latest mafia claims.
Speaking exclusively to the Mail, Antonio D’Amico, 52, who was Versace’s boyfriend for 15 years up until his murder, insisted that he was happy to cooperate with anti-mafia investigators — because there was no substance to the allegations that Versace collaborated with them.
‘I knew Gianni for 24 years and for 15 of those I was his partner and to think he was involved with the N’drangheta is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,’ said D’Amico last night. ‘Gianni did not launder a lira of N’drangheta money. He never went into a bank and he didn’t even know how to write a cheque so how was he supposed to have laundered dirty money?’
But, ominously for the Versace family, Italy’s anti-mafia police indicated this week that they are now planning an investigation into the new claims.
As the Versace clan fight to keep their brother’s name ‘clean’ of mafia associations, one thing is certain: the last chapter has not yet been written in the tale of the poor boy from southern Italy who became the darling of the global fashion elite.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Comments