When mobster Santino Di Matteo turned police informant, he could never have imagined that the Cosa Nostra would target his son, Giuseppe, in a chilling act of Mafia vengeance

Young Giuseppe Di Matteo thought he was being taken to see his dad when one day in 1993 the police turned up to see him.

Former Mafia member Santino Di Matteo had recently turned on his gangster pals and was being held by authorities for his own protection. But his 12-year-old son now found himself being used as a pawn after Cosa Nostra mobsters in Sicily, Italy pretended to be the police and kidnapped him.

The disturbing operation was led by hitman Giovanni Brusca and gang boss Salvatore 'Toto' Riina. For nearly 800 days, the innocent boy endured unimaginable torment while being kept in a cafe.

He was beaten and starved by the gang, who even sent pictures of the boy to Santino as part of the sadistic intimidation. The initial plan was to stop the defector from giving evidence in the case of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, who was murdered in a car bombing.

The legendary judge had spent his career trying to bring the mob to justice, famously orchestrating the so-called "maxi trial" in 1986, which led to the conviction of 342 mafiosi.

Brusca was ordered to get revenge and, in 1992, he planted half a tonne of explosives under a road near Palermo, targeting Falcone as his car drove past.

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The judge was killed along with his wife and three bodyguards, and Brusca was immediately forced on the run. The eventual capture of Santino identified Brusca - known as ‘The Pig’ - as the ringleader, sealing the tragic fate of Giuseppe.

In 1996 - 779 days after his kidnapping - Brusca gave the order to kill Giuseppe with five callous words: "Get rid of the puppy". The child was so exhausted from his maltreatment that he didn't put up a struggle as he was strangled to death.

His body was then dissolved in acid to ensure it would never be found - a practice known as 'lupara bianca'. Chillingly, Brusca showed no remorse, later boasting in his memoirs about his increasingly vile exploits.

“I’ve dissolved bodies in acid; I’ve roasted corpses on big grills; I’ve buried the remains after digging graves with an earthmover,” he wrote.

“Some pentiti [former Mafiosi] say today they feel disgust for what they did. I can speak for myself: I’ve never been upset by these things.”

Brusca was soon arrested and jailed for 25 years after confessing his role in more than 100 murders. His subsequent release in 2021, then aged 64, caused outrage in Italy that such a lethal killer was now free to roam the streets.

Tina Montinaro, whose bodyguard husband was killed alongside Falcone, told the Repubblica at the time: "The state is against us - after 29 years we still don't know the truth about the massacre and Giovanni Brusca, the man who destroyed my family, is free."

Three years earlier in 2018, Giuseppe's family received more than €2.2m (£1.9m) in compensation for his murder. Santino said in an interview on the 25th anniversary of his son's kidnapping: “I think about it every day.

"How can there be people so evil to treat a child this way? When people get involved in stuff like this, it’s most likely they are never coming back.”