In Italy: Toddler brutally killed after his Mafia boss grandfather used him as Human shield to prevent assassinations

3-year old Nicola 'Coco' Campolongo was brutally murdered along with his grandfather and his grandfather's Moroccan girlfriend in an apparent mafia assassination linked to drug-dealing territory.

3-year old Nicola 'Coco' Campolongo was brutally murdered along with his grandfather and his grandfather's Moroccan girlfriend in an apparent mafia assassination linked to drug-dealing territory.

The toddler, who was being used as a human shield by his grandfather, was shot in the head in the town of Cassano allo Ionio, Italy.

Police in Italy have arrested two people on suspicion of murdering Nicola 'Coco' in the killing that sent shockwaves through the country.

 

Coco's body was found strapped in a car seat in a burnt out in a case that stunned Italy.

Cosimo Donato, nicknamed 'Mouse', and Faustino Campilongo, known as 'Potbelly' have been arrested.

They murdered Coco because he recognised them, police said.

 

His grandfather, Giuseppe Iannicelli, had been trying to expand his business in Cosenza - a territory controlled by the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia - and had started taking his grandson with him on drug runs to try and stave off reprisals.

The two alleged attackers lured Iannicelli to a meeting purportedly to pay for a batch of drugs, then killed all three.

On the roof of the torched car was a single unmarked 50 cent coin, an apparent symbol from the assassins that Iannicelli had not paid his debt.

The toddler's mother was serving time for drug trafficking at the time of the attack.

 

He had previously lived inside the jail with her for a year before being handed over to the custody of his grandfather.

Following the discovery of Coco's body, Pope Francis condemned the mafia's 'adoration of evil' at a mass in Calabria, the southern Italian base of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

The Pope said the gangsters were effectively 'excommunicated' - or banished - in the eyes of the Church.

People who are excommunicated are expelled from the Church, unless they repent, and are considered to be condemned to Hell in the afterlife. 

The 'Ndrangheta is one of the most powerful mafia organisations in Italy, along with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Neapolitan Camorra. 

It makes most of its money from drug trafficking and has spread from Calabria to northern Europe and North America.

They supply an estimated 80 per cent of Europe's cocaine. 

According to Save the Children Italy, 30 children have been killed in clan violence since 1950, many gunned down during attacks on their parents or other family members.

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