Monaco heiress Helene Pastor critically ill after Mafia-style shotgun ambush on French Riviera

NICE: -- The head of one of Monaco's wealthiest families was critically ill on Wednesday night after she and her chauffeur were victims of a "savage" shooting in Nice, on the French Riviera.

Detectives are investigating whether Helene Pastor, 77, whose property-owning dynasty is close to Monaco's royal family, was the target of Mafia-style hit.

The attack came as she was being driven out of the car park of the Archet hospital in Nice on Tuesday evening after visiting her son Gildo Pallanco Pastor, the head of an electric car manufacturer, who is recovering from a stroke.

A gunman ran up to her black Lancia Voyager people-carrier as it waited to join traffic on the road and opened fire on the front passenger side, where Mrs Pastor was sitting.

She was hit in the jaw and the tinted window was shattered. The attacker then looked into the car before shooting her chauffeur in the chest and abdomen.

The chauffeur collapsed on to the steering wheel and the vehicle continued to roll along the road until it hit a low wall.

The gunman ran off, in front of startled onlookers, and drove away in a car with an accomplice.

Onlookers described the weapon as resembling a pump-action shotgun, according to the Nice-Matin newspaper.

Full story: http://www.theage.com.au/world/monaco-heiress-helene-pastor-critically-ill-after-mafiastyle-shotgun-ambush-on-french-riviera-20140508-zr6oj.html


-- The Age 2014-05-08

Not, only in Thailand...............

Given the dubious connections of Monaco high society from the very top down a 'mafia style' attack may not be that far from the truth.

I hope that she survives, she is elderly and that is so traumatic, people that rich very seldom are in the same room with regular people, they are invisible. sounds like a set up, if he dies who stands to profit.

When you are in real estate, especially in Monaco (where you have very wealthy people and many of them foreign {I won't name the mafia}) you make enemies. But at the moment they don't know whether it was her or the chauffeur who was the target.

Rich beware if you have millions in the bank that other people want use an armour plated bullet proof car for daily transport.

They needed to kill a 77 year old woman?...must have been a personal wound...festering for years...to bring this about...

77 year old woman and still alive.

Mafia fail.