'Pizza Connection' mafia kingpin dies in US prison

Gaetano Badalamenti, once described by US authorities as the “boss of all bosses” of the Sicilian Mafia, has died, a Justice Department spokesman said.

Badalamenti, 80, a ringleader of a $1.65bn (€1.4bn) heroin and cocaine smuggling operation that used pizzerias as fronts to distribute the drugs from 1975 to 1984, was sentenced in 1987 to 45 years in federal prison.