Mamma mia! Don on the Don feels mother’s wrath
NOBODY would dare disrespect Tony Soprano or Don Corleone like that – but Scots mafia boss Antonio La Torre could not escape a good dressing-down from the woman who gave birth to him.
La Torre is currently on remand in Italy facing gun charges and allegedly plotting to threaten prosecutors.
And in a secret recording made by Italian investigators, the former Aberdeenbased restaurateur, nicknamed ‘the Don on the Don’, can be heard on the receiving end of an angry tongue-lashing by his elderly mother.
In a newly-released intercepted phone call, his elderly mother Paolina Gravano reprimands him for ‘planning to shoot’ rival gang members in Italy, and urges him to move to Scotland. She says: ‘What are you going to do with this gun? Do you want to ruin yourself, too? Go to Scotland. I’m sick of appearing in the papers.’
La Torre, 61, ran two restaurants in Aberdeen during more than 20 years of leading a double life as part of the Camorra crime organisation.
He now faces charges alongside his brother Augusto and nephew Tiberio. Father-of-three Antonio is currently in jail awaiting trial for alleged gun possession and plotting with Augusto, 55, to threaten Italian prosecutors.
The case involves claims that La Torre, based in the seaside town of Mondragone on the outskirts of Naples, was involved in a long-running feud and bitter power struggle with a faction from the nearby town of Sessa Aurunca.