From: Daily Mail
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During this time, the family was building its crime syndicate from a small gang to the multi-million pound empire it would become. Cigarette smuggling turned into cannabis smuggling, and then harder drugs.
Marisa said: ‘In the early 1980s he got involved in heroin – he would get it from Turkey and sell it on to the dealers. My family made a lot of money from it.’
But it had its consequences: four of Emilio’s siblings became addicted to it, three of whom died within 18 months as a result, one from AIDS.
The money started to flow: holidays were spent in the family’s lavish villas overlooking lakes, they ate out every day, and wanted for nothing.
But with the money came the risks.
‘When I was seven, my dad was shot in a bar,’ Marisa said. ‘He was drinking with a friend and with his girlfriend, who was three months pregnant at the time.
‘It was a classic bullet spray, meant for someone else, but it got my dad, who was shot in the arm and the leg, and his girlfriend.’
Emilio’s injuries were so bad he still suffers from them today. His pregnant girlfriend died from the gunfire in front of him.
