Rome: Gianni Versace’s brother has dismissed as “false” claims made by two mafia turncoats in a new book published earlier this month that the murdered Italian fashion legend was linked to organised crime and was killed by the Godfathers over his bad debts.

“It’s absolutely all false,” Santo Versace has said in a televised interview broadcast earlier this week, the programme said in a statement. “The Gianni Versace company has never laundered dirty money or trafficked drugs. Everyone knows this,” he is quoted as saying.

Santo Versace is the chairman of the Gianni Versace group.

The two mafia turncoats alleged in the book of interviews that Gianni Versace, a native of the Calabria region in southern Italy that is a bastion for the 'Ndrangheta organised crime syndicate, had links to the mafia group.

Versace, who was shot dead by serial killer Andrew Cunanan outside his Miami Beach mansion in 1997, was never investigated or charged with mafia association. He began designing with his dressmaker mother and went on to create an international fashion empire including perfumes, accessories and clothes.

In the book Metastasi, author Giuseppe Di Bella alleges that Versace was being used by Godfather Paolo De Stefano to launder money. He also describes how the mafia group plotted to steal Versace's ashes from a cemetery near his family home on Lake Como on New Year's Eve 1997 but it was never carried out.

A member of Italy's police force say Di Bella – a former police informer – had always provided accurate information.