Mafia boss Gambino jailed in Italy after deportation from U.S.

Italian authorities took into custody a top boss from the New York City-based Gambino Mafia family Saturday who was deported from the United States after spending more than two decades in jail for drug-trafficking.

Rosario Gambino, 67, arrived at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport on a flight from Miami. Wearing a grey jumpsuit and looking frail, he sat in a wheelchair as he was escorted out by police officers.

Gambino, an Italian-born New Jersey resident, was considered a top mobster in the crime family led by his late cousin, Carlo Gambino.

He was convicted in 1984 in a multimillion-dollar conspiracy to sell heroin in southern New Jersey and sentenced to 45 years in jail.

He was released in 2007 and transferred to an immigrant detention centre in California to await expulsion, Italian police said in a statement. It wasn't immediately clear why the sentence had been reduced.

In Washington, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency confirmed Gambino had been turned over to authorities in Rome, but an official said the agency had no information on any reasoning behind Gambino's apparent early release.

The official said Gambino used several U.S. federal appellate courts to try to prevent his deportation, but that process had ended recently, leading to his transfer to Rome.

Gambino has been wanted in Italy since 1980 on drug and Mafia-connected charges and he is expected to face trial.

Before being transferred to a Rome jail, Gambino was served with the original 1980 arrest warrant signed by Giovanni Falcone, one of Italy's top anti-Mafia prosecutors.

Falcone was killed by the Sicilian mob in a 1992 bomb attack and Gambino's return coincided with the anniversary of the murder, which was being commemorated across Italy.