Mafia murder boy of THREE after his grandfather failed to repay debt to Italian mafia

Nicola Campolongo was found over the weekend in southern Italy

Alongside it were the corpses of his grandfather and his girlfriend

Killing of a toddler has shocked even hardened investigators in Italy

A three-year-old boy has been murdered by the mafia, who then burnt his body, after a drug debt between rival clans went unpaid, investigators believe.

The body of Nicola Campolongo was found over the weekend in a burned-out car behind an abandoned farmhouse. Alongside it were the corpses of his grandfather Salvatore Iannicelli, 52, and his girlfriend Ibtissa Touss, 27.

The killing of a toddler has shocked even hardened investigators in Italy, where bosses have long perpetrated the myth that the mob doesn't hurt women and children. In reality there have been many innocent victims of the criminal organisations over the years.

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Investigators believe Nicola Campolongo was killed over an unpaid drug debt

The body of Nicola Campolongo was found over the weekend in a burned-out car The killing of a toddler has shocked even hardened investigators in Italy

Crime scene investigators working at a burnt car where three burnt bodies were found in Cassano allo Ionio, Calabria province, southern Italy

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

Police in Cosenza, in the far south of Italy, believe both the killers and victims hail from clans affiliated to the Ndrangheta mafia.

The Ndrangheta, based in Calabria, the toe of Italy, are the country's richest and most powerful mob, with global ties that include Colombian drug cartels and the IRA. They supply an estimated 80 per cent of Europe's cocaine.

Nicola's mother, Antonia Iannicelli, and father, also Nicola Campolongo, who are both in prison for drug trafficking offences

The grandfather was caring for little Nicola, nicknamed Coco, because the boy's father and mother, Mr Iannicelli's daughter, are both in jail.

They were arrested a year ago as part of operation Tsunami, a crackdown on the mafia trafficking of hallucinogenic drugs.

The child's uncle had reported the group missing after Mr Iannicelli, who had previously spent time in jail, did not return home for his court-imposed curfew, which was between 8pm and 8am.

Police in Cosenza, in the far south of Italy, believe both the killers and victims hail from clans affiliated to the Ndrangheta mafia

Investigating prosecutor Franco Giacomantonio said: 'Every line has now been crossed.

'How can anyone kill a three year old boy in this way? In many years of work, I think this will be the most brutal murder that it has been my duty to investigate.'

Social justice campaigner Franco Corbelli, who knows the family, said the little boy had already suffered great injustice and lack of humanity having been thrown in jail with his mother when she was first arrested a year ago.

He said: 'I have done everything I could have done. I have fought for more than a year to save this child and his young mother. But everything I have done has been for nothing.

'Ferocity, barbarism and cruelty have prevailed and were not stopped even when confronted by a child.'

One of the clans' most famous victims was 11-year-old Domenico Gabriele who was shot while playing football in 2009 and died in hospital three months later.