Melbourne police are hunting the contract killers of a Melbourne lawyer, who acted for a number of gangland figures.
Joe “Pino” Acquaro was a well known criminal lawyer in Melbourne who had a $500,000 contract on his head and was shot early Tuesday morning after leaving his ice cream cafe.
Mr Acquaro had strong ties within the Calabrian community and had been president of Melbourne’s Italian Chamber of Commerce and the Reggio Calabria Club.
He evidently displayed no concern about the threats on his life, which involved the bounty being substantially increased in recent weeks. Media reports indicate that he was killed by a foreign hitman imported for the killing.
Det Insp Hughes said Mr Acquaro was known to police “through other associations” not because he had been convicted of any crime.
“There was a previous incident here that police were aware of.
“From what I’ve been told, it appears that was a very minor incident that wouldn’t result in something as tragic as this.”
Detective Hughes would not say how many gunshot wounds the man suffered or what type of gun was used in the murder.
