Ontario's Mysterious Luppino Family

Johnny "The Enforcer," head of Papalia family,
one of three key Mafia families that dominated
crime in Hamilton, Ontario.

Historically, three key Mafia groups emerged in Hamilton, though there were other families and organized crime rings in the tough steel town located on the border of Ontario's Great Lakes.

They were the Papalia family (initially an outpost of Stefano Magaddino's Buffalo, New York-based family), the Luppino family (of which more to come) and the smallest family of the three, the Musitano crime family, which is a faction of the Calabrian Ndrangheta that wanted to dominate the area.

The Musitano family was behind the 1997 hit on Johnny "The Enforcer" Papalia, boss of that family, as well as the killing of then-Papalia family underboss Carmen Barillaro two months later. They also considered taking out the boss of the Luppino family, presumably in a move to dominate Hamilton, a key city in the Ontario province in terms of historical organized crime.

The Musitanos also had been discussing an alliance with Vito Rizzuto back in the late 1990s, but two separate investigations by law enforcement officials, one in Canada (regarding Musitano involvement in the Papalia hits) and the other in the U.S. (involving Rizzuto's involvement in the early 1980s triple whacking of a faction of the troubled Bonanno family), ended talks, as far as is known, with no alliance emerging from the meeting.

The entity now controlling what had been the Vito Rizzuto Sicilian Cosa Nostra family is apparently engaged in hostility with Ontario-based Ndrangheta factions, as recently noted.