Mob boss made his mafia base in Scotland
Antonio La Torre was a restaurateur renowned for his seafood risotto who also led an extraordinary double life. The mob boss was a key player in the Camorra crime clan and masterminded money-laundering scams from a modest flat above a butcher’s shop in Aberdeen. He opened two Italian restaurants – Pavarotti’s and Sorrento – after moving to Scotland in 1986 to be with his then-wife Gillian, who was born in Aberdeen. But his respectable life as a businessman and devoted father-of-three was a front for an organised crime network which led to Aberdeen being described as a Neapolitan mafia base. Italian prosecutor, Raffaele Cantone, said: “Scotland was the perfect HQ for the clan. “It was considered a safe, quiet place to run the organisation. “Without leaving Scotland, La Torre was able to force businessmen thousands of miles away to pay protection money.” Antonio expanded his empire to include fitness clubs, catering firms, pubs and betting shops, all of which he used to launder money. He bought land for a car park in Aberdeen city centre and converted a building into flats, making a six-figure profit. He also set up phantom companies, securing bank loans to place orders then dissolving the companies so he could pocket both the cash and the goods. Mr Cantone said: “It was lucrative – goods had not been paid for and could be sold off in Scotland at prices well below those of the competition. “The clan’s activities in Scotland were varied, from the exporting of frozen fish to the running of restaurants and to services connected to the world of oil refineries.” The organisation began to crumble in 2004 when an Italian court jailed La Torre for 13 years in his absence for crimes including racketeering, extortion, robbery and the production of counterfeit money. He went on the run and was eventually snared hiding in a friend’s flat in Aberdeen in 2005 and sent back to Italy to serve his sentence.