The presence of a dead dove at the execution led to speculation that Versace had links to the ’Ndrangheta organised crime group stretching back to his mother’s dress making business in Calabria – a claim denied by the Versace siblings and the company.

There were other things that would me believe he was indeed linked to them.

The designer Gianni Versace met the boss Franco Coco Trovato in Lecco in 1992. This is what Nino Fiume, a former affiliate of the 'Ndrangheta, states in a statement that emerged during the interrogation of the deputy prosecutor Giuseppe Lombardo in the context of the "'Ndrangheta massacre" trial.
The repentant Fiume (former boyfriend of Giorgia De Stefano and son-in-law of Paolo De Stefano, killed in 1985 in Archi) reconstructs the relationships between Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta and that of the meeting of the designer Gianni Versace with the boss Franco Coco, which took place in that period in Lecco. Nino Fiume was defined by PM Giuseppe Lombardo as a 'key' figure to undermine the excessive mafia power of the very powerful De Stefano clan.