Antonio Cataldo, 57, a clan member from Locri in the southern region of Calabria, reported the 2013 threat against Nicola Gratteri’s family after turning state’s witness in jail, the Gazzetta del Sud newspaper reported.

Gratteri, who has spent three decades under close police protection because of his work and is the lead prosecutor in the ongoing “maxi-trial” against the ‘Ndrangheta, was at the time tipped to become justice minister.

The clans in Locri were apparently alarmed at the prospect and hatched a plot against the prosecutor’s son, which was related to Cataldo by a fellow inmate in prison.

“They did not want to shoot him, but they were going to run him over in a car,” Cataldo is reported to have told authorities.

The ‘Ndrangheta, rooted in the southern region of Calabria, has surpassed Sicily’s more famous Cosa Nostra to become Italy’s most powerful mafia group and operates across the world.