Mafia Don Shot Dead In His Car In 'Mob Hit'

A high-ranking member of the Canadian Mafia has been gunned down near his home in the latest killing linked to a power struggle in the country's criminal underworld.

Rocco Sollecito, 67, was shot in his BMW 4x4 in the Montreal suburb of Laval - only a few hundred metres from a police station.

He was pronounced dead in hospital after the shooting on Friday morning.

Laval police department spokesman Franco di Genova said the shooting appeared to be "a mob hit".

Sollecito's murder comes during a period of turmoil in Canada's criminal underworld, and three years after Vito Rizzuto, the Montreal Mafia's longtime patriarch, died of natural causes.

Sollecito infamously appeared in video presented at an anti-corruption commission that showed him receiving stacks of money from a local construction boss in 2004.

His son Stefano is alleged to be the current head of the city's Mafia, alongside Rizzuto's son Leonardo.

Both Stefano and Leonardo were arrested in police raids in November and charged with drug trafficking.

Police spokesman Sergeant Claude Denis said Quebec's organised crime unit had taken over the investigation.

Pierre de Champlain, author of a history of organised crime in Montreal, said Sollecito was an "influential figure" who had acted as a "consigliere" - or adviser - to the younger generation.

He said the murder appeared to be the latest incident in a "dismantling" of the Rizzuto crime family's old guard.

He said: "The history of Mafia teaches us that each time that the Mafia has gone through trouble it was often due to the purposeful conflict of the old generation versus the young generation, and today the Mafia of Montreal is a perfect example."