Cotroni crime family
Founded | 1940s |
---|---|
Founder | Vincenzo Cotroni |
Founding location | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
Years active | 1940s–Present |
Territory | Quebec and Ontario |
Ethnicity | Italians as "made men" and other ethnicities as associates |
Activities | Racketeering, drug trafficking, murder, illegal gambling, corruption, extortion, theft, loan sharking, fraud |
Allies | Bonanno crime family |
Rivals | Blass gang Rizzuto crime family |
The Cotroni crime family, originally Cotrone
The organization was established in the 1940s by Vincenzo Cotroni, a Calabrian immigrant from Mammola. Its territory once covered most of southern Quebec and Ontario.[2] An internal war broke out between the Calabrian and Sicilian factions of the family in the late 1970s, which resulted in the death of acting captain Paolo Violi and his brothers. This allowed the Sicilian Rizzuto faction, a Mafia crime family, to overtake the Cotroni's Calabrian faction as the preeminent crime family in Montreal. Vincenzo died of cancer in 1984, followed by his brother Frank in 2004.
History
In 1924, Vincenzo Cotroni immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, with his two sisters, Marguerita and Palmina, and his brother Giuseppe; his two other brothers, Frank and Michel, were later born in Montreal.[3] In the late 1920s, Cotroni attended a wrestling school where his teacher, the French-Canadian professional wrestler Armand Courville, ended up joining the family.[4] Cotroni and Courville became infamous in Montreal for their roles in the "baseball bat elections" of the 1930s, working as enforcers for the Quebec Liberal Party and using baseball bats to threaten or assault voters opposed to the Liberals.[5] When the Union Nationale won the 1936 election, Cotroni and Courville switched their loyalties.[4] The two men forged political connections that ensured immunity from prosecution for decades afterwards.[4]
In the 1950s, the Cotroni family formed a strong connection to the New York-based Bonanno crime family, which was beginning to control the majority of Montreal's drug trade.[6] In 1953, Carmine "Lilo" Galante, an influential member of the Bonanno family, arrived in Montreal and worked with Cotroni. Galante planned to make Montreal a pivotal location in the importation of heroin from overseas for distribution in New York and across the United States via the French Connection. Police also estimated that Galante was collecting gambling profits in Montreal worth about $50 million per year.[1] In April 1956, due to Galante's strong-arm extortion tactics, the Canadian government deported him back to the U.S.[7]
As is the norm with
At the height of their power in the 1960s and 1970s, the Cotroni family was divided along geographical lines, with each
In the late 1960s, the Cotronis engaged in a violent feud with French-Canadian mobster
Both Di Iorio and his deputy, Frank D'Asti, were very close to the Quebec Liberal Party.
During the October Crisis of 1970, Cotroni was often mentioned in the manifestos of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), which accused the gangster of rigging elections on behalf of the Liberals and being one of the exploiters of the French-Canadian working class.[15] Cotroni did not welcome the attention that the FLQ manifestos, which were read on both the television and radio, brought to him.[15] After Laporte was kidnapped by the FLQ, D'Asti approached his aide, René Gagnon, offering to have the Cotroni family help police find the labour minister before the FLQ killed him.[15] Although the offer was accepted, Laporte was not rescued and his body was found stuffed into the trunk of an automobile.[15] In December 1970, policeman Robert Ménard successfully bugged the Reggio Bar, Violi's base of operations.[16] The recordings of an oblivious Violi revealed much about the operations of the Mafia in not only Canada, but also the U.S. and Italy as well.[17]
In the 1960s and 1970s, Cotroni used Obront to supervise a
In September 1974, Cotroni was subpoenaed to testify at the Commission d'Enquête sur le Crime Organisé and was imprisoned for contempt after the commissioners declared his testimony to be "voluntarily incomprehensible, disconnected, vague, hazy and equivalent to a refusal to testify".[20] Following Cotroni's imprisonment, Violi took over control of the family, and on 9 January 1975, Violi told Pietro Sciarra to go to New York to ask Philip "Rusty" Rastelli of the Bonanno family to appoint him the new boss of the Cotroni family.[20]
Mafia war in Montreal
Following his imprisonment, Cotroni transferred the day-to-day activities of the family to Violi, a capodecina together with Frank, Di Iorio and Greco.[21][22] Cotroni's role became more that of an adviser to Violi.[23][24] Greco led the Sicilian faction of the family until his death in 1972.[25][26]
Soon after, in 1973, a violent power struggle broke out between Sicilian and Calabrian factions in the family, notably aspiring Sicilian mob boss
During the war in Montreal, Violi and his brothers were murdered along with others through the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, when the war ceased.[6][32][33] Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of the Toronto Star wrote: "Vic Cotroni was not one to buck New York and any hit on Violi had to be sanctioned from the United States". [31] By the mid 1980s, the Rizzuto crime family emerged as Montreal's pre-eminent crime family after the turf war.[2]
The Calabrian faction continued to operate with Frank Cotroni, who had been imprisoned from 1975 to 1979,
After Simard turned Crown's evidence following his arrest in Toronto, his replacement was the boxer Eddie Melo. Like Simard, Melo was in charge of bringing strippers and video game machines from Montreal to the Toronto area.[37] In the early 1990s, Melo took the lead in forging a cross-Canada alliance with the Commisso 'ndrina of Toronto and the East End Vancouver chapter of the Hells Angels.[38] The police surveillance teams observed Melo frequently having meetings in Toronto with the three Commisso brothers and Lloyd "Louie" Robinson, the sergeant-at-arms of the Hells Angels East End chapter.[38] Melo also often visited Vancouver, where he was greeted with much respect during his visits to the clubhouse of the East End chapter.[38]
Frank Cotroni died, of brain cancer, in August 2004, leaving the Rizzuto Sicilian faction as the most powerful crime family in Canada.[39]
On 4 November 2012, Joe Di Maulo, a longtime ally of the Cotroni family, was murdered outside his Montreal home.[40] Police believe his murder is part of an ongoing power struggle between the Sicilians and their rivals.[41]
References
- ^ a b Auger and Edwards The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime p.63.
- ^ a b c Lamothe & Humphreys, The Sixth Family, p.308
- ^ "Le parrain discret: vie et carrière de Vincenzo Cotroni" (in French). quebec.huffingtonpost.ca. 14 September 2014. Archived from the original on 8 November 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
- ^ a b c Auger & Edwards 2004, p. 61.
- ^ Auger & Edwards 2004, p. 59.
- ^ a b c The Rizzuto family Archived 2013-07-23 at the Wayback Machine by Corinne Smith (January 6, 2011) CBC News Montreal
- ISBN 1-59257-305-3.
- ^ a b c d e f g Schneider 2009, p. 257.
- ^ a b Schneider 2009, p. 257-258.
- ^ Auger & Edwards 2004, p. 170.
- ^ Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 270
- ISBN 9780470159248.
- ^ a b c d Schneider 2009, p. 270.
- ^ a b Schneider 2009, p. 258.
- ^ a b c d Auger & Edwards 2004, p. 172.
- ^ Edwards 1990, p. 97.
- ^ Cedilot & Noel 2012, p. 81.
- ^ a b c Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 262
- ^ Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 264
- ^ a b Schneider 2009, p. 267.
- ^ Auger and Edwards The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime p.195.
- ^ L'atentat, p. 65
- La Presse, 1er décembre 1973
- ^ Idem, p. 63
- ^ Lamothe, Lee. Humphreys, Adrian. The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto. pg.27–29 Archived 2014-06-22 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Manning, George A, PH.D Financial Investigation and Forensic Accounting pg.214–215 Archived 2021-01-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The man they call the Canadian Godfather". National Post. February 26, 2001. Archived from the original on 11 April 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
- ^ Champlain, Pierre De. "Organized Crime". Archived from the original on 2010-01-21. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
- ^ Langton 2015, p. 72.
- ^ Cedilot & Noel 2012, p. 99.
- ^ a b Edwards 1990, p. 121.
- ^ "Canada's alleged Godfather pleads guilty" Archived 2012-11-07 at the Wayback Machine, Montreal Gazette, September 18, 2008
- ^ "Mob takes a hit" Archived 2008-03-23 at the Wayback Machine, Montreal Gazette, November 23, 2006
- ^ "Frank Cotroni dies of cancer". Canadian Press. 21 August 2004. Archived from the original on 27 December 2018. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
- ^ FBI linked Montreal mobster to alleged U.S. assassination plot Archived 2012-11-07 at the Wayback Machine, CanWest News Service, July 10, 2007
- ^ "Montreal crime family's last member dies at 72". theglobeandmail.com. 18 August 2004. Archived from the original on 31 October 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
- ^ Auger & Edwards 2004, p. 141.
- ^ a b c Sher & Marsden 2003, p. 308.
- ^ Alleged crime boss Cotroni buried in Montreal Archived 2009-02-21 at the Wayback Machine, CTV News, August 22, 2004
- ^ Reputed Montreal crime boss Joseph Di Maulo killed in his driveway north of the city Archived 2012-12-25 at the Wayback Machine, National Post, November 5, 2012
- ^ Police fear Montreal mobster's murder may be start of bloody Mafia war Archived 2012-12-11 at the Wayback Machine, National Post, November 5, 2012
Books
- Cedilot, Andre; Noel, Andre (2012). Mafia Inc. The Long, Bloody Reign of Canada's Sicilian Clan. Toronto: Random House of Canada. ISBN 9780307360410.
- Edwards, Peter (1990). Blood Brothers: How Canada's Most Powerful Mafia Family Runs Its Business. Toronto: Key Porter Books. ISBN 155013213X.
- Langton, Jerry (2015). Cold War How Organized Crime Works in Canada and Why It's About to Get More Violent. Toronto: HarperColllins. ISBN 978-1-4434-3255-9.
- Lamothe, Lee and Adrian Humphreys (2008). The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto, Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd., ISBN 0-470-15445-4(revised edition)
Books
- Auger, Michel; Edwards, Peter (2004). The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime: From Captain Kidd to Mom Boucher. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 0771030495.
- Sher, Julian; Marsden, William (2003). The Road To Hell How the Biker Gangs Are Conquering Canada. Toronto: Alfred Knopf. ISBN 0-676-97598-4.
- Schneider, Stephen (2009). Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada. Toronto: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0470835005..