A former boss of a French-Italian mafia family has died after being shot and then run over on a motorway.
Jean-Pierre Maldera, 71, was driving his BMW near the southeastern city of Grenoble when a car containing three or four gunmen came up alongside him, local authorities say.
One opened fire using an assault rifle believed to be a Kalashnikov, hitting Maldera in the elbow.
Maldera ‘then stopped his vehicle on the road and got out’, said Francois Touret de Courcy, Grenoble’s deputy public prosecutor, in a statement.
The 71-year-old began to flee on foot but his attackers ‘made a U-turn, drove the wrong way along the motorway and hit him violently’, Mr de Courcy added.
‘The body was thrown and found in the opposite lane of the motorway.
‘The gunshot wound was not fatal, and the cause of death was more likely to be due to the impact with the vehicle or the fall onto the carriageway.’
A pistol was found near Maldera’s body, and a stolen Renault Megane believed to have been used by the attackers was found burned out in a Grenoble parking lot later that day.
Maldera and his younger brother Robert were described in French media as the ‘Godfathers of Grenoble’ in the 1980s and 1990s, playing the role of ‘brains and brawn’ respectively.
Robert, who was reportedly nicknamed the ‘madman’, disappeared ten years ago after leaving to attend a meeting in mysterious circumstances.
Three people were charged with killing him in 2017 but his body was never found.
Organise crime in the city, which is near the Italian border, was said to have been dominated by gangsters with blood ties to the northern Italian mafia.
The Malderas were ‘the last family in France to be more feared’ thansource close to the investigation told French broadcaster France Bleu.
The brothers were convicted of a range of offences including racketeering and ‘aggravated pimping’ in 2004, but were released the following year due to an administrative error.
Jean-Pierre had been in and out of prison since the 1970s but chose to live a quieter life following his final release.
He is not known to have had any brushes with police in the last two decades.
Detectives investigating his killing have urged any witnesses to come forward.
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