RAI journalist Sigfrido Ranucci's police protection has been upped to a round-the-clock guard after a narco trafficker linked to the 'Ndrangheta issued a hit order against him for his reporting for the State broadcaster on the Calabrian mob.
Police got wind of the plot, in which a jailed 'Ndrangheta narcotrafficker ordered two hit men to 'take out' Ranucci, the journalist told a RAI radio show on Tuesday.
"I've been under a 24-hour escort since August because there's a joker who ordered two foreign killers to murder me from prison," Ranucci told Un Giorno da Pecora.
"He's a character who runs narcotraffikcing, linked to 'Ndrangheta families".
Ranucci told ANSA later that the man had been linked to Pablo Escobar's cartel and with subversive rightist groups in Italy.
He said the two hit men may be Albanian.
Ranucci, who presents the Report investigative journalism show on Rai3, had already received death threats from milieux clos to Mafia boss Beppe Madonia in 2010 for his reporting on the so-called Mafia-State talks to end a bombing campaign by Cosa Nostra.
He was assigned a police escort after that.
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