He insists he's just a normal businessman living quietly with his

Sunday Herald, The, Oct 2, 2005 by Home Affairs Editor Liam McDougall

The clan was founded by Francesco Tiberio La Torre, whose wife Paolina gave birth to Antonio in 1956 and Augusto three years later.

As the brothers grew up, intelligence reports compiled by the Italian police noted Antonio and Augusto's growing influence in the family business. By the age of 26, Antonio was heavily involved. A report on the clan's activities by the local police in Mondragone in 1982 describes him as a "leading member of the Camorra clan".

In 1984 he was first charged with mafia association. That year, however, a marathon cat and mouse game began with La Torre and the Italian authorities which is still ongoing today. Back in 1984, by the time the case came to be processed he was already in Scotland and had married Fraser.

With the Italian crime of "Mafia Association" not recognised by the UK, La Torre was safe from extradition. But it was not long before he was again featuring in the police investigations into the Camorra.

By the early 1990s the Neapolitan authorities had become so concerned about the scale of the La Torre clan activities around their Mondragone stronghold and beyond that another purge was launched against them, which included covert surveillance and phone taps.

Investigators say that despite being in Scotland, Antonio again came to their attention. This time, the police gathered evidence that he was the connecting link between his brother Augusto and known criminals in South America in undertaking large-scale drug trafficking.

A swoop on the gang led to Augusto being jailed but, yet again, Antonio was safe as long as he remained in the UK. In 1996 he took a chance and left Scotland, flying to Amsterdam. At Schiphol airport, he was immediately arrested and deported to Italy. There, he was sentenced to two years for firearms offences and mafia association, but served half his sentence and was released. Once more he was back in Scotland out of the reach of the Italian police with his wife in Aberdeen.

By now it was 2003 and Antonio La Torre was running two restaurants in the city - Pavarotti's and the Sorrento, on Bridge Street. A police operation again targeted the La Torres in Mondragone. As part of the swoop, 25 people were picked up - among them Antonio's sister, Esterina, and sisterin-law Anna Maria Giarra. The initial accusations against those arrested included mafia association, trafficking counterfeit money and money-laundering at home and abroad.

Once more, Scotland featured in the police's intelligence reports.

Naples police believed the La Torre criminal clan was developing a strategy to use its Scottish connections to launder profits from mafia racketeering. Antonio and another man - Michele Siciliano, a businessman who co-owned Pavarotti's - were among those accused in a report published that year by Italian prosecutors.

The Italian authorities claimed that phone taps had thrown up conversations between Scotland and Italy arranging for large sums of money to be invested in businesses in Aberdeen. Although La Torre has always denied any criminality, the police believe otherwise.