Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's involvement with the Sicilian Mafia Cosa Nostra has been confirmed by the country's Supreme Court judges.
After the arrest of the former leader's middle-man, it was proved that Berlusconi did business with the mafia for around two decades.
According to The Independent, the billionaire tycoon, nicknamed the Teflon Don, worked with Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, via his conduit and former senator Marcello Dell'Utri after judges sentenced Dell'Utri to seven years for mafia association.
While Berlusconi has always maintained that he was innocent, it was proven during the trial that the former prime minister relied on the mafia for funds to start his construction and media businesses in the 1970s and 1980s.
However, Supreme Court judges accepted prosecutor Aurelio Galasso's claim that Marcello Dell'Utri was the guarantor of the agreement between Berlusconi and Cosa Nostra for 18 years, from 1974 to 1992.
The verdict confirms the sentence imposed on 72-year-old Dell'Utri by Palermo's Court of Appeal in March last year, the report adds.