The "godfather" of the Franco-Italian mafia is executed! Fatal mistake, the bullets didn't catch him, but he got out of the car and...

A former French mafia boss dubbed "the godfather" has died after being shot and then crashed on a motorway near the city of Grenoble.

Jean-Pierre Maldera, who was a major mobster in the 1980s, was killed after a car chase on the A41 motorway on Wednesday morning.

Video footage published online shows a white BMW in the middle of the road with the driver's side window broken.

Francois Touret de Coucy, Grenoble's deputy public prosecutor, said in a statement that Maldera "was shot with a Kalashnikov," with at least one bullet hitting him in the elbow.

“[Maldera] then stopped his vehicle on the road and got out. The attacking vehicle made a turn, drove the wrong way along the highway and hit him with force. The body was thrown and found in the opposite lane of the highway.

"The gunshot wound was not fatal and the cause of death was more likely due to a collision with a vehicle or a fall into the roadway," the prosecutor added.

A pistol was found near his body, the prosecutor said.

The perpetrators fled the scene and their vehicle, a stolen Megane RS, was found burned out in an isolated car park near a small stadium a kilometre away a short time later.

Maldera, along with his brother Robert, were among the so-called "godfathers" of the Franco-Italian mafia that terrorized the southeastern city in the 1980s, according to a source close to the case.

Robert Maldera, nicknamed “Il pazzo,” “the madman” in Italian, disappeared in 2015, aged 55, after attending a meeting on the outskirts of Grenoble. His car was discovered two months later in a nearby car park. A prosecutor at the time said there was good reason to believe he had been murdered.

The two brothers were jailed in 2004 after a case involving charges of extortion, money laundering and the procurement of sex workers. However, the pair were released the following year due to a technical glitch that marred the case.

Skena e krimit

Jean-Pierre Maldera

Skena e krimit