Her father did time for drug possession and an uncle was sentenced to death for murder, while another was convicted of violence – meet Bianca Censori’s mafia family.
The architect graduate, who is making headlines for her weird and wonderful wardrobe, tied the knot with rapper Kanye West two years ago and the first thing she did was reveal the skeletons of the family.
Bianca’s Italian-born father Elia ‘Leo’ Censori was sentenced to five years in prison for heroin possession in 1982 and, like his brothers, reveled in their heritage and modeled himself on the crime families of their home country.
The same year, her uncle Eris – a notorious gang killer once dubbed ‘Melbourne’s Al Capone’ – was sentenced to death for the murder of Perth waiter Michael Sideris.
Eris was also jailed for eight years in a later trial for heroin possession and fined $20,000 Australian dollars – almost £46,000 in today’s currency.
However, the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment on ‘royal prerogative of mercy’.
Kanye West and Bianca Censori had an ‘unofficial’ wedding two years ago
Bianca’s Italian-born father Elia ‘Leo’ Censori (pictured) was sentenced to five years in prison in 1982 for possession of heroin
Leo Censori’s ex-wife ‘betrayed’ him on the front page of the Herald Sun in 1991
Leo (left), 37 years old, pictured with his brother Eris, a notorious gang killer once dubbed ‘Melbourne’s Al Capone’
The death penalty was abolished in Western Australia in 1984, although the last execution in Australia took place in 1967.
He later applied to serve his sentence closer to home in Melbourne, where his elderly parents lived. He was eventually released in 1999, but was ordered to remain on indefinite parole.
In 2015, he attempted to have the restrictions lifted and although he impressed the judge by defending himself, the decision was upheld and he continues to live under the court’s imposition.
Meanwhile, eldest brother Edmondo, better known as ‘Eddie Capone’, has been convicted in Victoria of violence including assaulting police, theft and making threats.
In addition to heroin trafficking, Leo also has convictions for possessing a handgun and fully jacketed ammunition.
In 1991, Leo’s ex-wife Faye Glascott threw the spotlight on his illegal gambling empire.
She told a reporter from the local Herald Sun newspaper that Leo had been involved in a cartel that controlled much of a lucrative illegal gambling industry in Melbourne in the 1980s.
Mrs Glascott said at the time that her former husband – who ran a slot machine company – had made a fortune through illegal gambling.
“Leo can stack money better than a bank,” she said as she revealed how she found rolls of cash – up to $40,000 – hidden around their Alphington home and recalled seeing around $60,000 on their coffee table.
At one point in the early 1990s, Leo was also given a police escort as it emerged that he had been contracted with rival gangsters who wanted to kill him so they could rob his earnings.
The local newspaper quoted his former wife as saying that Bianca’s father was a “serious criminal.”
She added: ‘I had an argument with him because he went into the kitchen to measure things using my utensils. I didn’t like that kind of thing in my house. It was a nightmare.’
Edmondo, Leo and Eris, along with three other siblings, were child immigrants when they arrived in Australia with their parents Filippo and Grazia in the 1960s.
The Herald Sun exposed Leo Censori in 1991, when John Silvester of The Age worked there
Leo Censori’s ex-wife blew the whistle on his life of crime in Melbourne’s Herald Sun in 1991
Leo Censori as he appeared in the Herald Sun in 1991
On the left of the photo is Bianca’s mother Alexandra, second left is Bianca herself, second right is Bianca’s sister Alyssia and on the far right is Bianca’s other sister Angelina
Kanye West (left) finally met his Australian in-laws in Tokyo, seven months after tying the knot with Melbourne-born Bianca Censori (right)
Bianca Censori is the daughter of Melbourne gangsters
The family had packed up their belongings in the house in the Abruzzo region of central Italy to start a new life Down Under.
Eddie was known to hang out in suburban coffee shops in Melbourne as a teenager before the family entered the gaming machine business before becoming associated with violence and drugs.
While the party-loving Bianca enjoyed the friendship of former classmates in Melbourne, her father and uncles raked in large sums of money through their criminal activities.
Mrs Glascott said her ex-husband had made a career out of studying gamblers and finding out what they wanted.
She said, “He knows what brings them in.” Some players lose large amounts of money and then try to win it back. They never do that.
About his illegal gambling empire, she said: ‘Those machines make wheelbarrows full of money.
‘Some people love him, but they have to love him, his machines put money in their pockets… They’re all creeps.
‘They say they like him because he makes them money. When he went to prison, no one wanted to know about it.”
Mrs. Glascott suggested that Leo would “never change his bad ways.”
She added: “I was trying to get Leo to start a legitimate business; to use his money, to turn it into white money, to go into something he didn’t have to worry about.
‘But there is the criminal in Leo. He gets a buzz from the police trying to catch him and he defeats them by changing the programs on the machines. He gets a kick out of that.
“He loves the lifestyle; therefore he will never change.”
Mrs. Glascott and Leo divorced in 1989 after fifteen years of marriage.
