Mob suicide?

last updated 8 January 2015

Modena, Italy

The consigliere of Italy’s top Mafioso was found dead in his prison cell this week, hanging from the bars by a sheet. Francesco Pastoia, 62, had been arrested just four days earlier, in a massive raid that netted 50 gangsters but failed to find the top target: Bernardo “the Tractor” Provenzano. It’s not unusual for Italian mobsters to be killed in prison so they can’t testify, but officials believe that Pastoia killed himself. Police had shown him the evidence against him, including tapes of phone conversations in which he discussed murders he had committed without Mafia approval. Pastoia, they speculated, did not want to risk Provenzano’s revenge. The 71-year-old Provenzano, reputed to be the leader of all Mafia groups in Italy, has been on the run for more than 40 years.