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Three died in mafia murder in Italy

19 March 2014 02:32 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Three people including a two-year-old child were shot dead as part of mafia revenges in Italy's southern Puglia region, local reports quoted investigators as saying Tuesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Cosimo Orlando, 43, was traveling on a highway with his partner and her small child, when a gang fired several shots from a passing car at close-range killing the three of them, police said.

Orlando, a convicted killer, had recently been paroled after serving 13 years in jail for participating in a double murder years ago.

Two more sons of Orlando's partner, aged six and seven, were reportedly sitting in the backseat and remained unharmed. Their father had been also killed in a drug-dealing mafia dispute in 2011, police said.

Following the shooting, Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano ordered the deployment of dozens of police officers to hunt the murderers, according to ANSA news agency.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has recently estimated the combined turnover of the main Italian mafia groups is worth around 116 billion euros (161 billion U.S. dollars) per year.